Ophelia Harrison (eyeofnightmare) wrote in tiberiusswann, @ 2009-06-10 11:53:00 |
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Entry tags: | ophelia, simon |
Sat 11/17/07
Who: Simon and Ophelia
Where: his room
When: afternoon?
What: talking to his father.
Simon was waiting for Ophelia to arrive, and it was making him antsy. He had cleaned his room twice already, not that it ever needed it. He always kept it tidy anyway. He just didn't know what else to do with himself. He wondered if maybe his father was in here right now, watching him. He wondered if he'd been here watching him all week, all month, all semester. He wondered how long his father had been dead, if it had been months ago or even years. He wondered how much he looked like his dad. Simon's mother hadn't kept any photos of her husband. She believed him to be a traitor to his family, abandoning them when they needed him most.
He was also trying to decide if he forgave him or not. Arliss had been out of Simon's life for thirteen years now, so holding a grudge seemed pretty pointless, especially since the man was dead. But he had run off on his family, hadn't even said goodbye. He'd never bothered to contact his only son. That was pretty grudge-worthy, regardless if he was dead or not. Simon knew he was overthinking, knew he had to just wait for Ophelia to come before he had to worry about this. But he was going to worry anyway.
When the knock finally came on his door, Simon practically ran to it, but stopped himself before the threw it open and scared the girl. Seemingly calm, he pulled the door open and gestured for her to come inside. "Hey," he said, smiling, acting like he wasn't a complete and total wreck.
---
This was so sad. Ophelia felt like she could burst into tears at any second as she looked for Simon's father. She had no idea how Simon must be feeling, but her heart went out to him if he was upset or not. No one deserved this kind of news at this age. Also, concentrating a little harder than usual forced her to see the weaker ghosts and there were several of them she passed. She looked around and pretended not to notice them, trying to pick out Arliss from behind. It was more difficult than she thought, considering he was transparent. Yet after a while, she finally managed to find him and called his name gently.
Persuading him to see Simon was not that difficult and she said that she hoped it would be a chance for the both of them to clear the air and work out some of the problems pent up. She disliked the thought of getting in the middle of people's business, but in this situation she couldn't help it. Still, tears prickled the back of her eyes and before she knew it, ran down her cheeks. Not a good start if she was too teary to speak from the get go. Ophelia wiped her face and now had to somehow navigate to Simon's room. Arliss helped her a little and she found herself in front of his door.
Here goes...She knocked on the door and did not wait long before he opened it. "Hi," she said quietly in response and smiled back so not to seem rude. "I brought the Uno cards! And your father." She gathered what little courage she had and stepped inside his room, waiting for him to point out where she should sit. Her heart pounded in her chest and she wasn't sure why she was as nervous as this. Maybe she needed to be the strong one, as the medium. "Oh, and I don't know if you like them, but I brought Starbursts. Lots of them." Ophelia reached into her purse and pulled out five packages of the candy, smiling. "It's really sad I like them so much, but they're sooo good!" She hoped her pathetic attempt to break the tension worked. "We can eat them as we talk and later as we play cards." More than anything, she wanted to help Simon.
----
"Alright, Uno," he said, smiling. Then she added the bit about his father, and his smile faltered. "Good," he said, though it was not nearly as enthusiastic as his response to Uno. He let her step inside, gesturing toward his bed. There weren't many places to sit other than on his bed or at his desk. Or they could sit on the floor, he supposed, but that wouldn't be as comfortable. Seating himself down, Simon let his eyes glance around the room, as though somehow he might see his dad. "I love Starbursts," he assured Ophelia. "Pink is my favorite." Of course pink was everyone's favorite.
He was fidgeting a little, not sure how to go about doing this. He wished Fisher were here. He'd only seen the guy a few times before, and they hadn't really spoken, but at least he was kind of a familiar face. It might be less awkward. "So, uhm... I dunno what to say, really. Is he... is he here?" Ophelia had said he was, but Simon didn't know where to look, or what he should be doing, or where his father might be standing.
"I guess the first thing I wanna ask, is just... how did he die? And when?"
---
Excellent. Ophelia hoped that the card game would take the edge off of the whole talking to his dad situation and sat on his bed gingerly. This was one of the few times she had been in a boy's room and it was a little awkward even if she was not interested in boys. She wanted him to see his father as much as he did and if she could bestow her power limited to one spirit, she'd give it to him. "Oh, good!" she said. "I like the red ones." A small smile appeared on her face as she said that.
She hadn't really done something like this before and thought it best to have Simon take charge as awkward as it was. After he asked his question, Ophelia figured he wanted to know where Arliss was. "Yes," she said and looked to where Arliss was standing right next to Simon. The second question was more difficult, but mostly for her to listen to the answer. Arliss spoke and she listened, hands clenching the sleeves of her sweater. This was going to be hard to say without being sad. "He... in a car crash in Hawaii... last May." The expression on the man's face was hard to bear and started to dredge up memories of her friend Aya. The fact that she couldn't see her made it worse and she had no idea why her deceased friend hid herself.
Was this to be the end of Arliss after he made peace with Simon? Would he make peace with his son? Ophelia hoped so. She waited for Simon's next question.
----
The answer Ophelia gave to his first question shocked him so much, he dropped the second question he had intended on asking. "Hawaii?" he asked, looking over his shoulder (and seeing nothing) before turning back to Ophelia. He had expected another state, but Hawaii??? That was really, really far. Apparently his dad had wanted to get as far from Simon and his mom as possible. Which hurt like crazy.
"Wait... something doesn't seem right." He couldn't believe that it had been a year and a half since his dad had died and Simon didn't know about it. "If he died last May... how come I never knew? Even if he was all the way across the country, across the ocean, they still would have told his family about it." He turned on his bed to face Arliss, though he couldn't see him. "And I know mom didn't know, she wouldn't have kept that from me. She was pretty much cursing you until the day they-" He paused, not wanting Ophelia to know his mom was in a nut house. "...until she left."
---
Hawaii was what she had heard, she was pretty sure, although it was possible she could have made a mistake. Ophelia nodded and wondered if receiving this information hurt him already. There was more to come, that needed to be said, and she steeled herself to continue despite her feeling as though she was going to crumble. Arliss spoke after Simon and Ophelia looked at him, a frown appearing for a moment on her face. "Well... his family did find out about it... in Hawaii," she said. All right, that was enough.
"Are you going to tell him you're sorry?" added Ophelia, looking pointedly at the spirit. Something about this whole situation hit a little close to home. "Because obviously you are, right? My biological mother left me with my parents when I was born and she never wanted to meet me my entire life. It's horrible of you to do the same to Simon!" She realized her voice had become louder over the course of her small speech and her eyes fell to her lap. Perhaps it was time for her to have some Starbursts in order to calm herself, so she tore into a packet and took a yellow one.
She wanted to have friends so badly and to be friends with Simon, but she didn't want to ruin things by yelling at his father. "I'm sorry," she said to both men. Her duty was to patch things between the two, not make things worse, and she needed to control herself to do that. Eating the candy helped a little, though she played with the end of a section of hair guiltily.
---
Simon stared at Ophelia, suprised. She was yelling at his dad for him. Strangely, that was one of the nicest things anyone had ever done for him. He was so taken aback by her sudden outburst, though, that the fact that she'd said 'family in Hawaii' didn't yet register. He slouched over, hugging himself. Maybe his dad would be sorry, and in a way that might help. But it wouldn't take away all the years of abandonment.
Arliss was sorry, and suprised this girl was yelling at him. She was only a child, she didn't get to speak to him that way! Of course she was right. That had been his whole reason for finding Simon, to somehow tell his only son he was sorry. There were other things to be said, yes, but that one was most important. He nodded to Ophelia, reaching out and stroking Simon's hair. He wondered what kind of man his boy would become, wondered what kind of man he already was. It had been a terribly thing to leave his family the way he had, never looking back, never seeking them out. But he couldn't have lived with the truth of things.
---
She hoped that Arliss would be able to forgive her as she was only a teenager and prone to outbursts which were hard to control. Hormones and being a girl combined made it difficult for her. As she gave him an apologetic look, Ophelia turned to Simon for a moment. She had no idea what to do, if she should comfort him or just continue answering his questions. "He is sorry," she said to him quietly. She played with the edges of her sleeves and figured she should add something to help things along. "That's the reason he found you."
Ophelia ate another piece of candy and wondered what they were thinking. It might be rude of her to ask Simon about what other questions he had, so she waited for either one of them to speak.
---
Simon didn't buy it. He could believe that his father felt sorry, and that maybe that was a reason Arliss had sought out his son, but that couldn't be the driving force behind it. If Arliss was sorry then why didn't he say something years ago, when he was still alive? Why did he have to wait all this time? Getting off the bed, Simon began to pace. "Okay fine," he said. "You're sorry. That's great, Arliss. That really quells the sting of thirteen years without a dad. Thirteen years! Living with mom, who thought I was the devil! I've had two exorcisms! Two! She's almost drowned me so many times. I hate even being in the shower too long thanks to that!" Simon had all but forgotten Ophelia was here. The dam was broken, and all the unspoken resentment for his father was gushing out.
"You knew what she was like and you left me. I was just a kid. I spent so long thinking maybe she was right, maybe I was cursed and that's why my dad left. You don't..." He ran a hand through his hair, tears forming in his eyes. "You can't even imagine what it was like. She was scared, and I was scared, and you just abandoned us. And when social services finally came and took me away, and some guy told me I was this thing I'd never even heard of, he said that it probably came from you. From you!!! The thing that drove you away came from your genetics! So I want to know where you've been, what the hell was more important to you than your own family? What the hell have you been doing for thirteen years that made you not even want to talk to your only kid???"
---
Ophelia felt sick, first from Simon yelling at his father and then from concentrating at Arliss intently for longer than she had done in the past. His words made things even worse as she heard the difficult times he had in the past. It was hard to stomach the fact that his mother had problems with him - she was lost in her thoughts and almost did not hear what Arliss was saying in return. First, he told Simon not to call him by his first name and Ophelia wondered if she should relate that to him. "He didn't like you using his first name," she said in a hesitant tone, almost quietly. All things considered, that detail did not matter in the grand scheme of things.
Resentment indeed. She listened to Arliss' reply as he apologized for not being there and not being able to stay with Simon's mother. "He's sorry for not being around to stop your mother. He couldn't handle staying so he left," she said and paused as new information came her way. "He is half nymph...but he couldn't bring himself to say that." She took a deep breath, more to keep her stomach from churning, and saw the sad expression on Arliss's face. What came next... ouch, did she have to tell Simon that? "And... um, he was with his family in Hawaii all those years... His wife and two daughters..."
Now she was not able to speak because her throat swelled and her gaze fell down to her lap. Calm yourself, she ordered mentally. This didn't make it all right at all and she wondered how Simon would be able to forgive him that. Or maybe Arliss just needed to tell his son and that was all. It was not her place to give an opinion on the situation, though, and wrapped her arms around herself.
---
Ophelia's words could not have hurt Simon more if she'd followed them with a slap to the face. He stared at her, totally stunned, his mouth hanging open. Arliss had the audacity to scold Simon for using his first name, had the gall to apologize and offer his only explaination as he was too cowardly, and then drop a bomb like another family as though it were nothing?? Simon had started crying before, but now he was too hurt and stunned for that.
"Wife... and two daughters... in Hawaii." He had to say it with his own voice for it to register. He could just imagine it, how perfect it was, Arliss and some stunningly beuatiful, half naked Hawaiin woman with two young, pretty girls with shiny black hair. All of them sitting on the beach, playing in the sand, walking along the surf. Smiling, laughing. No troubles. A far cry from Cullman, Alabama. His hands were shaking. He looked livid. He wanted to scream, and cry, hit something, hit Arliss. He wanted to set something on fire and make it burn. He didn't know if he could control that last one.
"Give me my pillow," he said urgently, reaching his hand out for it. "And open the window." His fingers dug into the soft cotton a he gripped it. Focus, focus. The cotton began to smolder, then smoke, and within a minute the entire thing was engulfed in flames, smoking up the room. He and Vinny had taken out the smoke alarm weeks ago, and good thing for it. He focused hard on the flames, keeping them contained, not letting it take over. It felt cathartic, like he was burning the anger out of himself. As few as six months ago something like this would have been too hard and he would have burned everything in the room.
When all that was left was ashes and the smell of burned fabric, Simon let the ashes fall from his fingers onto the floor. He'd need to vacuum that. "Sorry," he said, sounding much calmer. He took a deep breath, then sat back down on the bed, wiping his hands on his jeans. "Okay. So. Wife and kids in Hawaii, then." It made sense now that he could think about it and not be completely angry. Arliss had been gone for thirteen years. What, was he just supposed to be alone for the rest of his life? Yes, Simon said to himself. "How old are they, your daughters?" he asked quietly. "What are their names?"
---
She had no idea what kind of reaction to expect from Simon and his anger scared her. He was not yelling at her, she knew that, but still it hurt to see his eyes blazing with such emotion. Her breath caught in her throat and she did not look at Arliss because she could just hear what he was saying to her. Part of her wondered if her biological mother had a family now, wherever she was. Perhaps discovering this was not so impossible... if she really wanted to know. Oh, Simon.
When he ordered her to take the pillow to give it to him and open the window, Ophelia hurried to do so out of fear. What was he going to do? He answered her question a short while later as the pillow started to smoke and burn. The smoke stung and irritated her throat, but the flames scared her. Memories of finding her friend lying dead on the floor of an apartment on fire hit her hard and Ophelia leapt off to press herself against the adjacent wall of the bedroom, a safe distance away from the pillow. It was as though she was completely numb, tears falling down her cheeks. She managed to stop herself from hyperventilating - Simon was able to control the fire he created and was not going to burn her. Okay.
Arliss answered soon after Simon spoke and Ophelia swallowed a couple of times so she could talk after her panic attack. "His wife's name is Oliana," she answered. "Minna is twelve and Lacy is nine. Can they... start fires too?" It was a question she wondered just now, curious to hear if he had the same difficulty with his other children, minus the problems with Oliana. "And how long did you watch over them?" Maybe Arliss intended to look after all the people he cared about, like Aya was with her.
---
If Simon had any idea he was scaring Ophelia, he would have left the room until he could control himself. But he didn't know, and he had to focus most of his energy on not burning the room down.
He listened to Ophelia tell him what his father was saying. They were very pretty names, and he imagined they were very pretty women. He was glad that Ophelia had asked about the abilities, because Simon was curious but he wouldn't have thought to ask. It was a good question, though. If Arliss had left Simon because he was a nymph, and the girls were part nymph as well, and Arliss had stuck around... well Simon might likely burn down the place before the day was done.
He didn't know what Ophelia meant by "watch over". He didn't think his father was watching over him. He figured he was just... actually he didn't know why he was here. "Why are you here?" he asked his dad. "I mean, why did you come all the way here to find me and tell me all this? I prob'ly would've been happier not knowing."
---
She exhaled softly when her heartbeat returned to normal and hoped Arliss had no more news to upset him. For her first time communicating with a spirit, she figured it was not going very well. The nauseous feeling remained, however, and she glanced at Simon's father only to have her head ache. Ophelia listened and gave a nod. "They can't do anything with fire."
As for Simon's next question... "He wanted to apologize, and say you inherited his abilities..." She paused for a couple of seconds. "And to see how you were doing." The last part seemed like it might contain a lot of personal information she shouldn't hear and she wondered if she needed to leave. "Maybe I should go... and you can say whatever you want to Arliss... You don't really know me and I feel like I'd be intruding even more on your privacy if you said more of these kind of things." After all she heard things that only Simon's close friends should hear and he probably felt awkward about the whole thing. There was no denying she took a liking to Simon and wished him the best.
----
Ophelia was really being great, and Simon didn't know how he would ever repay her for this. Even though all she was delivering was bad news, Simon had wanted to hear it and was really appreciative. She may not have thought she was being helpful, but she was.
"No, it's alright," he assured her, a few tears spilling down his cheeks. "I don't... I don't really have anything else to say to him. I mean, I'm glad I know I guess, but... I dunno. I'm not really happy." He hugged his knees to his chest. "I mean, what can you say to stuff like that? As far as anyone knows, I'm not even his kid anymore." He wiped his tears off with the back of his hand, though they were quickly replaced with fresh ones. "I don't want him in here anymore," he said after a moment. "Can you tell him to leave? Or something? I dunno how that works. I know I can't see him, I just... I want him gone. I don't want to think about him being in here, looking at me." He didn't want his dad anywhere near him.
---
She nodded and did not want to continue to make Simon so upset. Maybe one of these days they'd have another conversation and things would be better, but neither one of them should push their luck at the moment. "Yeah..." she looked at Arliss and asked him gently if he wouldn't mind leaving the room. He accepted and left with a final message for Simon. "He says he's not going to leave just yet. Just so you know." It probably sounded creepy and Ophelia watched as the spirit of his father left the room. Now it was time for the two to relax a little, because they needed it.