Chapter Seventy-Eight: Jade And Anni, Part 2
“Well, I trust you know how it goes,” Anni starts. “I started dating Astil because my friends told me too. They knew I thought he was cute, so they told me to ask him out. I did that, and he rejected me. Or, at least, he tried too, but Zade and Xavier didn’t let him.
“When I went on my date with him, at first, he was really shy, but he warmed up, and he told me he wanted to officially date me. I accepted happily, of course, and soon I was introduced to the group. At some point, I learned about the Cult, but it never bothered me. It was always something in the back of my friends’ minds, but I never truly cared about it.
“As you know, things did not end well. One day, I was just talking with Astil on a normal nightly date, when Raakshas—he was a cultist mage-in-training with a grudge against Zade—and three other mages arrived and hauled my Atty away. I tried to stop them, but I wasn’t strong enough. They were full mages, and I was just a panicking mage-in-training. It was horrible to me, and I ran to tell my friends immediately. We went to the Dragon Head and there we faced off with the mages. It was a fight we were winning, but it wasn’t all okay. In the end, Astil was killed, and Zade, in a rage, wiped out all of the enemy mages. It was the worst day of my life, and if it had ended that way, I don’t know how long it would’ve taken me to recover. Maybe weeks, maybe months, maybe days. But it didn’t matter, because Zade decided he wasn’t done.
“For some unexplicable reason, he got it into his head to resurect my friend. Needless to say, it didn’t work, and when I saw what happened to Astil’s body afterwards, there’s no words for it. It was horrible, and that memory is sealed in me forever.
“From then on, I didn’t know what to do or think or say. My friends tried to comfort me, but I felt helpless. I didn’t do anything to help Astil, I didn’t save him when he needed me. Astil was one of the nicest and sweetest people I ever knew and he didn’t deserve what happened to him.
“I can’t forgive myself, and, althought I want to, I don’t know if I can forgive Zade either. While I know it isn’t totally his fault, I blame him for introducing me to the cult, for having a rivalry with Raakhshas, making that bastard take it too far. And it’s too much for me.
“I bet Zade and the others have told you how I barely left my room the first week or so. It hasn’t gotten better since then, I’ve just gotten better at hiding it. Every single bleeding day is a struggle to survive without Astil. I barely knew him for long, why the hell should I feel this way? I think I underestimated how close I could get to someone if I stayed with them every moment of every day. But whatever the reason, I do feel this way, and I can’t stop it. Astil is dead, and it’s my fault, and it’s Zade’s fault, and it’s the Cult’s fault, and I blame everybody, but it feels wrong!
“What do I do, Jade? How do I get over this?” Anni is properly crying now, her words broken by heaves and sobs. “Is there any hope, Jade, or will life always be like this. Astil didn’t deserve this!”
“Anni, I…” Jade pauses. “You’re right, Astil didn’t deserve this. But neither do you. There is so much I could say to you, but I don’t know if it will help. How long do I know you? Only a week, and rarely have I seen you this past week, it isn’t enough to truly know who you are. But in the weeks you knew Astil, I can tell you did get to know him well. From the little I know of you, you are just as sweet as Astil, and he was happy to have you, I know it.”
“I know that, too, but it doesn’t make it any easier. He was so young, and barely had time to be happy with me,” Anni whimpered. “They killed him just when he was beginning to love me.”
“No, whatever you do, do not say that because that is not true,” Jade tells her firmly. “I may not have known Astil, but I’ve heard your stories, and this much I know: Astil was not beginning to love you: he lved you from the beggining, and even in the end, he loved you. It was no beginning, Anni. And yes, you should be sad for his death, but don’t be angry and resentful becausse he was happy and yound when he was taken, be joyful that he was happy when he was alive. He would hate to see you so broken and sad, because he wanted to be happy and he wanted to make you happy.
“I’m not good with pep talks. Some people have said I am, but I’m no good at emotional support. Inside, I know I am a hypocrite, and if this happened to me, I wouldn’t be able to deal with it myself. But, I want to help, and be there for you. Because I may not understand you completely, but you still deserve to be happy.”
“Do I? After what happened to Astil, do I truly deserve to be happy or should I be sad because the person that deserved to be happy is dead?”
“He was happy, and that is good,” Jade says. “Ah, what am I saying? You should mourn him, too, but be thankful for your time with him, because I know he was thankful for his.”
“How do you know if you never met him?” Anni asks. “But you are right. And I know you lost people too. What was it like?”
“I wasn’t very close to either of them,” Jade admits. “They were good friends, but I wouldn’t trust them with my secrets. Chrome was nice, and Demien was Zade but way more mean. Almost spitefully so. I loved them enough, as they were part of the Guard. They were killed by the monsters heading here right now.
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“I won’t pretend it was as hard to get over them as it will be for you, but it was tough. Part of the reason I did was because I was still in constant danger. That shakes you out of your depression very quickly, you know. But the other reason was that I knew Chrome only was happy if we were, and she loved to bring us joy, so it was unfair to honor her by crying.” Jade herself is tearing up now, but she plods on. “Demien, I can never truly get over his death. He was a bully, stupid at times, but he was still bleeding lovable. The last thing he told me was that he wished…” She heaved in sadness as her tears began to flow freely. “He told me he wished I missed him, but not too much, because that was weird. And I do miss him, thaty bastard. I’ll never forget how he only wanted us to remember him, to think of him well.
“Astil would want the same. He would be happy knowing we remember him fondly. You must know, Anni, that it’s okay to be sad and cry. There’s nothing wrong with feeling depression. That only means that the person you’re sad about was worth it. You should never truly get over his death, because that shows that you care, that he was special. Move on, but leave a space in your heart for the man who loved you, because he would love you for that. It’s better to be happy, but you can mourn, because, more than anything, he does deserve that.”
Anni smiled softly even though she was still sobbing. “For a hypocrte, you sure know how to make someone feel just a little bit better.”
“That’s all I want to do, Anni.” Jade smiles.
“I’m so glad you came here, Jade,” Anni tells her. “I needed someone older to help me like this, and I’m thankful I found you.”
“I’m blessed to be able to help you. I’m just happy I could be of help.”
There they sit, silently, reflecting on losses, on trajedy, on moving on, comforting each other in their sadness. It reminds Jade of what Yue told her happened at the monolith, but to her, this is more special. Anni may not know it, but she did deserve to be happy, and Jade feels bad that she doesn’t know it. Maybe this time can help her to realize it.
Time passes. Jade doesn’t know how much. Eventually, the tears quiet down, and they lay there on each other’s soldiers, two girls who don’t know each other very well, but are linked. Jade caresses the girl’s hair as she closes her eyes and smile softly.
“Jade?” Anni asks. Jade opens her eyes to find the sun at a very different place than it was before. From her best estimates, they’d been here for an hour or two.
“Yes?”
“Can I tell you about Astil?”
“Of course,” Jade smiles. “I would love to hear about him.”
And so Anni pours her soul, telling about her boyfriend, the boy she loved—and still loves—to a teary-eyed Jade, who is hearing attentively. She hears all about Astil’s sweetness and care, about how he loved to make jokes and how his innocence was always a source of humor to everyone. How he was a good sport, and had trusted her with anything. How she had loved him and tried to be the best for him, and how he had said he had never met anyone like her. At some point, Anni talks about how she knows it may sound corny, but coming from Astil, she knows it was real and sweet.
Anni gets choked up when she mentions how Astil said he would die for her before he would let her go to harm, and that’s when Anni drops the bombshell Jade bets Zade doesn’t know about.
“He literally died for me,” Anni tells her. “I was fighting one of the mages, and the mage was about to kill me when Astil jumped in. And because he jumped in, he was killed. He died so I could live, Jade. His sweetness wasn’t a lie; he died proving it.”
In the end, Jade wishes more than ever that she had met the boy Anni was talking about. When Anni finishes, she’s crying again. But this time it’s tears of joy as she relives all the good moments instead of the bad ones, and Jade cries too. For those who want to be happy but can’t because they’ve lose the one who could make them happy, and she cries because she’ll never meet the boy who made others happy.
“Thank you so much for this,” Anni embraces Jade warmly. “You don’t know how much this means to me.”
“I care about you so much,” Jade responds.
“But you don’t even know me.”
“I know you enough to know you deserve it,” Jade responds. “I wish you the best, Anni, and I promise as long as I’m here, I’ll do everything I can to help you.”
“Astil would love you,” Anni tells her.
“That’s a great compliment.”
Everything must end eventually, and, too soon, their time was up. Anni says she has a lot to do at Zenyth and Jade says she must practice, but she’s lying. All she wants to do now is think, to remember, to cry, to laugh. For her, Astil is a martyr, proof that the Cult is evil, proof that good men exist but that even die.
It’s a sobering thought.
But there’s happiness. Because she knows the impact he has made. Astil is now more than a boy. He’s the hope inside of Anni; he’s the little brother inside of Zade; he’s the peace and hope inside of all who knew him or knew of him. Astil will never be forgotten, jade promises herself. Because if he is, then the world truly has failed.
That night, Jade refuses her friends’ offers to eat with them. She spends the night in reflection, and way past midnight, she stares at the stars, wondering if Astil is out there.
Because if God exists, then maybe afterlife does too. And maybe Astil is watching all of them in peace and happiness. She hopes he feels joy as he sees how they remember him, how he has changed them all for the better. Even how he has affected her—a woman who never even met him.
“Thank you for everything, Astil,” She whispers into the night, hoping the boy is listening. “We will never forget you.”
Peace flows into Jade, and she smiles softly. Life was evil, life was bitter, but for every bitterness, for every evil, there was something sweet, something good.
And Astil was the balance.