I’d Give Up The World For You - Chapter 216

Rukelion’s honesty had drained him but he wasn’t as miserable as he usually was after therapy because he came home and Daisy greeted him with a hug, a kiss, and a warm brownie. The reminder that she was finally his in some capacity again calmed his troubled heart somewhat.

Therapy only got worse after he had been a little honest because Amy expected more and more out of him. Mostly she asked him about his memories with his family but after a few weeks she began asking him about the day he lost them specifically.

He repeated that he couldn’t tell her so she switched tacks. “Okay, you can’t tell me. What about afterward? You mentioned the majority of your symptoms didn’t occur until years later. Why was that?”

“Because I had a goal,” Rukelion admitted. “I was willing to endure anything in order to accomplish it.”

“And this goal resulted in meeting your family’s killer again,” Amy surmised.

He had forgotten he told her that was the trigger before the secondary traumatic event. She was smarter than he often gave her credit for. How did she manage to keep track of so many patients’ horror stories?

“Yes. I was determined to bring justice to them so I pushed everything else to the back of my mind.”

“How did your last family member feel about that?”

“Huh?”

“The one who died from a bee sting. They must have been with you at least some of the time while you were accomplishing your goal. Were they aware of what you were doing or that you were suppressing your trauma? You never mentioned which one survived the initial attack,” Amy pointed out.

Rukelion internally cursed. How was he supposed to explain this? He had dug a hole for himself by telling too much of the truth.

“My cousin,” he lied. It was what he and Daisy used to tell people about how they knew each other anyway. “I met up with her later. She wasn’t there when I lost everyone else. She knew I had a goal but didn’t know what it entailed.

“She didn’t know about what happened to my family either except that they were dead. She thought I was fine until after I accomplished my goal and started falling apart. She…wasn’t very happy with me. She said I couldn’t hold things in to the point that they destroyed me and that I needed to process them and let them go so I could move forward.”

“Your cousin was right. The best way you can honor her memory is to let go of your anger and live on,” Amy said gently.

Rukelion let out a slightly hysterical laugh. Honor her memory? She was still alive! Alive and waiting for him at home. She did still want him to process things though, which was why she had sent him to therapy in the first place.

“How? How do I do that? All of this happened because of stupid, selfish people who had no thought to the consequences of their actions and I hate them! I hate HER so much and I can’t do anything about it!”

Thinking about Juliet made his flames go haywire since his emotions were already so raw. He wasn’t able to stop himself this time. The top of his head and his balled fists momentarily burst into flame before he panicked and stopped them. Nothing had burned but Amy had let out a small scream and toppled over backward in her chair.

“You’re on fire!”

“You didn’t see anything,” Rukelion denied as calmly as possible. He had to make her believe she was seeing things or he was toast.

“Yes I did! What was that? Do you have a lighter on you or something? But you don’t look burned at all! What just happened, Leo? I’ve seen a lot of violent outbursts in my day but nothing like that!”

“I don’t have a lighter on me.”

“Then what—”

“I am the lighter,” he said with a wince. That sounded so stupid but she wasn’t going to let this go. It wasn’t like she could tell anybody about this. No one would ever believe her.

“You are the lighter,” Amy repeated faintly. “How does that work?”

“You won’t believe me if I tell you.”

“We’re past that. I saw it with my own two eyes and it defies explanation so at this point I’ll believe just about anything.”

Rukelion cupped his hand and held it up before producing a flame and tossing it back and forth like a ball. Amy’s eyes were as wide as saucers and she stared at the fire transfixed until he made it vanish.

“I’m a fire mage. I never had any issues controlling it until what you call the secondary traumatic event. Now when I’m especially angry I catch fire by accident. I do my best to control it but it can be difficult at times.”

“A fire mage? Are you saying you have magic?” Amy asked in disbelief.

“It’s so much worse than that,” he sighed. “The reason I can’t tell you things is because the truth seems impossible and I don’t want to get locked up.”

“What could be more impossible than you having magic?!”

“Magic only exists in stories here, doesn’t it? Why don’t you try and put it together?”

“You…” It took her a moment to process and she sunk against the back of her now upright chair looking like her entire worldview had been turned on its head. “You’re the guy from that movie poster my daughter has in her room, aren’t you? You’re the villain of Down in Flames.”

Rukelion’s eyes flashed. “DO NOT mention that in front of me! But yes, you have been talking to a fictional character all this time. How does that feel? Probably not nearly as bad as I felt when I found out my entire life was being orchestrated carelessly by someone who didn’t even think I was real.”

“How is this possible?” Amy whispered.

“I’m just as lost as you are. All I know is that somehow two people from your world ended up in mine and the story deviated. And now I’m here dealing with people thinking I’m imitating myself! Do you have any idea what that’s like?!”

He was so upset now that he burst into flame from head to toe. He stood and paced so he wouldn’t damage the chair he had been in and so he could get some of his furious energy out as he ranted.

“My true enemy was the blasted author of the novel all along and I never knew until she came storming in thinking I was going to destroy the world so she decided to destroy me first. Well, guess what? She did!

“She got my wife and unborn child killed right in front of me because of her stupidity without bothering to see that I wasn’t following the pattern of the original novel. That horrible hag killed my family right in front of me TWICE! As if she first time wasn’t enough for her!

“And she gets off scot free, making money from my pain. What do I get? I gave up my entire world to follow my dead wife’s soul here and she doesn’t even remember me! No one is qualified to judge me or my choices but especially not you. You. Don’t. Know. ANYTHING.

“I haven’t been able to talk to anyone about this either because one of the people involved can’t remember and the other takes tremendous effort not to kill every time I see her. So there you have it! The truth about why therapy doesn’t work on me!”

Rukelion was hysterically sobbing and laughing the whole time he went through that little speech and when he was done his fire finally went out as he crouched on the ground in a ball, utterly defeated.

“I…I really don’t know what to say,” Amy said softly sometime later. “Your case is unique.”

He let out a sharp, watery laugh. “No kidding!”

“So you couldn’t tell me the truth because you thought I wouldn’t believe it and tried to make things fit with this world’s rules. Was Daisy your wife then? And your so-called cousin?”

“Yes. Time flows differently between the two places. Apparently, during the eight years she was with me she was also in a four-day coma. She returned to her original body when she died in my world and I used my magic to find her but she doesn’t remember anything.

“That’s why I can’t give up on her. I screwed up and I hurt her even before that awful woman stuck her nose in where it didn’t belong. She’s all I have. And you have absolutely no right to judge me for it.

“You don’t know what I’ve been through or what I’ve done. You don’t know that the only thing that kept me from completely being swallowed by the darkness and following the plot of that cursed book was her warmth and light in my life.

“I don’t care if you think our relationship isn’t healthy or balanced.. You don’t know anything about her or me or our situation so you need to shut up about that already,” he finished bitterly.