Simon groaned. "No, you don't want to know about that," he assured her. "That's not the kind of thing you talk about on a date." Except this was Cissy Vallario, and she did not ask questions she did not want answers to. And she also didn't take 'No' as an answer. He sighed, knowing that he had been defeated without her having to say a word.
"Okay," he conceded. "I used to live on a house by a lake. I was baptised there, actually." His mother had made a special request for it, and he'd seen pictures of himself in the tiny white gown as the priest sprinkled water on his face. And he'd been screaming in every picture.
"After we discovered my fire abilities, my mom thought I was the devil. Like, literally. She used to splash me with Holy Water every now and again, see if she could catch me off guard and burn out the demon." It was obvious he didn't like talking about his mother, that it embarassed him to no end. But he continued anyway. "As part of my treatment to flush out the devil, she'd take me to the lake and hold me under water for as long as I could stand it, hoping to 'put out the fire in me'." His eyes glazed over, looking distant and nostalgic. "Anytime I did anythign with water it was wrong," he concluded. "She watched me shower to make sure I didn't do anything wrong. She tried to drown me. She forced me into a religion I'm not even sure is right." Wow, there's a lot of revelation here, he thought. Maybe stuff best left untouched.
"I'm also a fire nymph, so that might have something to do with not liking water," he concluded. He wouldn't face Cissy anymore.