I don't have nightmares, I have flashbacks, which are worse. Because of my photographic memory, I can almost too easily recall every painful moment I've ever experienced. Tonight, I had happy dreams about Dex. That made waking up to the knowledge that he's gone even worse. I replayed when we woke up in Paris from our kidnapping. It was raining. We were freezing cold and soaking wet, but none of that mattered because we were free. I screamed with joy and splashed in the puddles. I was crying and laughing. My hairpin from Biana has somehow remained in my hair until that moment, when it came out. I was pinning it back in my hair when Dex came and twirled me around and then pulled me tight in a hug. He seemed to think who cares anymore? and kissed me! I had been in love with him since I first saw him, and it was one of the best moments of my life. He was so cute after he let go with his face redder than I thought it could go. Then I leaned in and kissed him again. I've always loved the rain since then. The scene changed and it was us on our third official date. He had made a reservation for us at a popular place in Atlantis. When we ordered dessert, he got cream all around his mouth. I started laughing, then realized that he was laughing too. I pulled his face in and wiped it off and he did the same for me. I leaned in and kissed him.
Suddenly, I woke up. It… was only a dream. I'm not even in that universe anymore. He's… gone. I feel the emptiness explode in my heart. I can't help but cry. I don't know how long I cried for, but then I heard someone else moving. I'm scared for a moment, then I remember, I share a room with Sophie.
"Lori?" She asks. "Are you ok?" I hurriedly dry my tears.
"Yeah. I'm fine." I say, hating how my voice cracked.
"No, you're not. I'm not going to push it if you don't want to talk to me, but I'm here if you need to talk to someone." She got up and walked over to my bed. She sounded so sincere, I wanted to tell her everything. But I didn't think I was ready to talk about Dex. So I decide on a half truth.
"I just… had to leave a lot of people behind." She sat next to me.
"I don't know what to say to that. Do you need anything?"
"A friend." I say the tears come back. I lean over and she gives me a shoulder to cry on. After a while I dry my tears and pull away. "Thank you. You should probably get ready for school now."
"No problem. I'm here anytime you need me." She says, going to get ready. After she's ready, I decide to stay in pjs for a while. We go down to breakfast together. Edaline made Blitzenberry Muffins. Another one of my favorites. As Sophie leaps to school, I realize that I'll face an entire day with Grady and Edaline. Not that I mind, they are my parents. It's just weird.
"So, you have the day off school." Edaline says.
"Yeah." Is the best response I can formulate between bites of the muffins.
"How would you feel about going shopping in Atlantis later while Grady's at work?"
"That sounds great!"
"Ok. It's a plan. I need to go help Grady with trying to get Verdi to eat now." We look out the window and see Grady trying to force feed Havenfield's permanent resident to eat her breakfast. I have to giggle when she spits it out again. As Edaline goes out the door, I decide to go get dressed and see if I can help. I go into my closet and pick out a simple tunic and leggings. I go outside and the feathery, neon green T-Rex is still refusing to eat her vegetables. I join the chaos and between the three of us, Verdi eats a good meal. Apparently, neither of them had noticed that I was helping.
"You didn't have to help us," Grady says when he notices me.
"That's ok, I wanted to. I helped with Verdi all the time before." I replied. I have to notice that images of my Grady don't fill my head anymore. "I'm just from another universe."
"Right. I guess it's just different adopting someone who knows what they're doing after Sophie." Grady responds.
"Why don't you go ahead inside and tidy up so we can look through all the gowns Della got you before we head out?" Edaline suggests.
"Alright." I reply. When I get inside I take a shower to get the Verdi spit out of my hair, then I choose a gown. I end up going with a peachy-orange one with pearls on the v-shaped neckline and three-quarter length sleeves. I go over to the desk in the room to look for a little makeup, but am disappointed when I realize that makeup isn't really Sophie's thing, so I can’t borrow any of hers. I decide to do my hair, then I hear Edaline coming back inside. “Hey mom?” I say. She looks a little surprised. Then I realize that I had called her mom. It had felt so natural, I hardly noticed myself saying it. I remember how hard the word had come when I was adopted the first time, and was still stuck on my human parents. I eventually figured out how to let them go, but I never forgot them. Then after I was rescued from my kidnapping I changed my last name from Foster to Ruewen.
“Yes?” She replies, snapping me out of my thoughts.
“I was wondering if I could use some of your makeup today? I didn’t bring any of my own, and Sophie doesn't have any I could borrow.”
“Sure honey. I’ll show you where I keep it. And we can get you some of your own in Atlantis.”
“Alright, thanks.” I say. I follow her into her room, and she shows me where she keeps all her makeup. I end up going with peachy eyeshadow and a light pink lip gloss. Edaline finishes up, and comes out wearing a blue gown that matches perfectly with her auburn hair. She puts on some neutral makeup and we head to my closet. We look at the remaining eleven gowns Della bought me. There’s the pink one, and the purple one I wore already, a green one I hope I’ll never have to wear, since elves only wear green to plantings because green is the color of life, a midnight blue one, a sunshine yellow one, a crimson red one, an amethyst purple one, a baby pink one, a sky blue one, an elegant black one, and a simple cream one. They’re all beautiful.
“Ok, let’s start by making a list of any colors or styles you know you want. Anything comes to mind?”
“Um, maybe something white?” I suggest. She conjures a notepad and pen and writes that down.
“That’s a start. Anything else you know you want?”
“Not particularly. Just that and some makeup.”
“Ok. I guess we’ll just choose a shop and see what we find.” As we enter Atlantis, I am once again astonished at its beauty. The watery dome surrounding the city cast a blue tint on everything. The towering skyscrapers made me feel small. We walk around trying to choose a dress shop to look through. We were still looking when I saw the fountain with the statue of the elf and the human. For centuries, the elves living in Atlantis had no idea that it was the gateway to the headquarters of the Lodestar Initiative. The Lodestar Initiative was to experiment on humans, and determine what happens in their brains so they can hurt each other and not go insane like elves. It was a terrible thing, and I’m glad it was exposed, I just wish we could have done it without using my human parents. I seem to hear Vespera’s voice in my head, taunting us. The smoke and mirrors. Fintan’s cruel cackle. Biana bleeding out, covered in wounds that would scar her forever.
“Lori?” It’s Edaline. I must have stopped walking. “Are you ok?” she asks.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.” I say, half trying to convince myself.
“Are you sure? You look a little pale. Do you want to sit down?”
“No, I’ll be fine.” I say and start walking. I try to put my worries behind me when I see the dress shop I know I want to look in. We stepped in the door and grabbed a few dresses right away, then made our way to the back. I noticed a few displays behind a rack of clothes. I made my way around and gasped. A flood of memories came rushing forwards at the sight of the violet dress. That was the dress I was wearing when the council sentenced me to wear an ability restricting circlet as punishment for breaking the rules of telepathy, and reading the mind of the ogre king, King Dimitar. Just remembering the circlet brings on a massive headache, and I have to touch my forehead to remind myself that I'm not wearing it anymore. It was even worse because I was in love with its inventor. The council had forced Dex to use his technopath abilities to make it by threatening to exile him and his family. I had forgiven him long ago, but it still hurt.
"Lori? Lori!" Edaline notices me clutching my forehead.
"I'll be fine in a minute!"
"Come on, let's go sit down." She guides me to a bench. I slow my breaths and the pain starts to fade. "What was that?” She asks.
"I… had that dress before, and… the thing that happened to me while I was wearing it… wasn't pleasant…" a small sob threatens to escape my lips. Why am I so emotional today? "I'm sorry-" I start, but Edaline cuts me off.
"Don't be. It's ok to be sad. You had to leave a whole world behind. That's more than anyone here can say. Now how about you go try on these dresses, and we'll go get some cinnacreme before we head to the makeup store?" I take one more deep breath then we head to the changing rooms. It feels good to mess around a little when I give Edaline a mini fashion show.  There's a little restaurant next door, and we go there to get our cinnacreme. It tastes delicious.
We sit down to eat it, and I suddenly get flashbacks. Me and Dex coming inside Rimeshire from having snowball fights with the snow his mom had made using her ability as a froster. Juline always made the best cinnacreme. The triplets had already gotten bored with the snow, and had slurped up their entire mugs. I guess I just can’t do anything today without feeling sad.
“Do you not like the cinnacreme?” Edaline asks.
“No, it’s just, they taste just like the cinnacreme one of my friend’s parents used to make.”
“Are they here too?”
“I… don’t think so.”
“Who is it? I know a lot of elves who make good cinnacreme.”
“It’s… sorry, I don’t think I’m ready to talk about it.”
“That’s fine. Take as long as you need. Just remember that I’m always here whenever you need me.” I smile.
“Thanks. Let’s go to that makeup shop over there.'' Thankfully, that part of our trip  runs smoothly, and I am confident that I have more makeup than I will ever be able to use. When we get home, Edaline helps me carry all my new things to my room. We organize all my makeup in one of my desk drawers, and lay out all the gowns we got. In the end, we had 17 new gowns. One was pink, and had a rose pattern on the skirt. There were four different blue ones, a yellow one, two cream colored ones, two white ones, an orange one, three different ones in varying shades of purple, two black ones with silver embroidery, and my favorite one. It had a skirt that fell much longer on one side than the other, and had tule in a bunch of pretty colors. It was purple and teal and blue, and it made me feel like how humans think of mermaids. I can’t wait until I have an excuse to wear it.
I pretty much stayed in my room and cried for a while after that, because the last thing I’ll want tomorrow is to start crying in the middle of something, but with my luck, I probably will, and somewhere the whole school will see me. I think I hear Sophie get home, and dry my tears. Edaline had explained that Sophie would bring my Foxfire schedule home. I go downstairs, and Sophie is holding a roll of paper.
“Ready to see your classes?” She asked.
“Ready as I’ll ever be.” I look at the paper, and smile. It’s similar to my old schedule, and I have almost all the same mentors, but of course, they wouldn’t know me. I’ll have two classes a day. One in the morning and one in the afternoon, with a lunch break, and a study hall at the end of the day.
Monday- The Universe with Sir Jarvin & Elementalism with Lady Vida
Tuesday- P.E. & Inflicting with Councillor Bronte (Session will be shared with Sophie Foster)
Wednesday- Elvin History with Lady Sanja & Telepathy with Sir Tiergan
Thursday- P.E. & Polyglot Lessons with Master Cadence (Session will be shared with Sophie Foster)
Friday- Agriculture with Barth the Reaper & Alchemy with Lady Delmira
“I’ll have two sessions with you?” I ask Sophie.
“Yeah, I had to go talk to Magnate Leto about that. He says that because Councillor Bronte and Master Cadence each only have a session with me, and they both have a bunch of other responsibilities, we should just do them together. Really, I think he just wants to compare our abilities, since you were your universe’s version of me.”
“That’s probably it, especially if he’s Mr. Forkle too.” I say after Grady and Edaline leave. I’m not sure if they know his other identities yet, and I don’t want to share a secret that isn’t mine. “But I suppose it’s too late to ask for Metaphysics instead of Alchemy?”
“Yeah. Alchemy isn't your best subject either?”
“That’s putting it lightly. Normally, I would have Seeking in that time slot, but I guess that would be hard to do, given that I’m the only one who has it here.”
“Well, after I manifested as a teleporter, and you came here as a Seeker, if we get one more new ability that nobody here has manifested before, we get to have a session called ‘Study of New Abilities’ and it’s basically for a bunch of people to come and study us and our new abilities and how they work, incase we have kids and pass it on to them, or something.”
“It’s not exactly Seeking Lessons, but I will take that instead of Alchemy in a heartbeat.”
“At least you don’t have it with Lady Galvin. I had her and I actually failed, and got to continue on a technicality.”
“So did I. The moment when she said she wouldn’t pass me was so terrifying.” We went up to our room to keep talking.
“So what did you do all day?”
“Edaline took me shopping.”
“Yeah she told me about that. It’s probably good that she has a daughter who likes all that now.”
“Probably.” I snort.
“She also told me that things kept reminding you of your old universe.” The mood in the room seemed to dim. I had been hoping that she wouldn’t mention that.
“Yeah… I…” Why is this so hard to talk about? I know she only wants to help me, so why can’t I just spit it out? I miss my boyfriend and I don’t think he’s in this universe. But whenever I try to say it, I just can’t force the words out, and a tear slides down my cheek. Sophie must have noticed, because she came and sat next to me again.
“It’s ok if you aren’t ready to talk about it yet, but I’m here whenever you’re ready. And so are Edaline and Grady.”
“Thanks.” I say, drying my tears. “Hopefully I can hold it together tomorrow.”
“You’ll be fine. And if you need to take a minute to just step out, all your mentors know the situation, so they should be fine with it.” I smile.
“So, is there anyone I should look out for? Biana already gave me all the dating drama in your group.”
“Oh, that must have been fun. And, you might want to avoid Stina. She’s been a lot nicer ever since joining Team Valiant, but staying away until you’re fully adjusted might be a good idea.”
“Noted.” I reply. Just then, Edaline calls us down for dinner. She made Brattails, and Sugarknots for dessert. Everything tastes delicious as usual. We go upstairs and get ready for bed. I crawl under the covers and hold Kitty.
“Sophie?” I whisper, after the lights are off.
“Yeah?”
“I’m nervous.”
“About tomorrow?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll help you out with anything you need.”
“Thanks.” I say, and close my eyes and drift off to sleep.