We talked on the phone once in a while, even went out a few times, though I wouldn't call them dates. I tried to tell Victor about the other side, and our souls. I gave him a poem called "Hurt Hawks", to try and jog his memory. I have to give him credit, he did try to understand it, but he couldn't see what it had to do with him. He was stubborn and denied all that I'd said, even though I hadn't told him much, and later I'd figure trying to tell him the rest would be pointless and dangerous to what was left of our friendship. Ironically, he sounded as human as the soul he denied once had. Whenever we talked or saw each other, I would see evidence of the hawk's presence peeking out from behind the mask of Victor's face, but Victor wouldn't allow him to awaken fully. My heart was broken for the second time. I was at a loss for what to do next. Within two years we'd gone from being very close to being together to hardly ever talking on the phone anymore. I would be interested in other guys, but there were always thoughts of Victor and the man-hawk in the back of my mind. Slowly the pain would be eased. I used to get very depressed, but I think I just got to the point where I was tired of it, and it started going away, though it took me until about the middle of my senior year to reach this point. I decided that the best thing would be for me to give up the struggle to hold onto the threads of our unraveled friendship, to let him go to lead his own life without my "crazy ideas".
I admit now that I was obsessive. But I don't regret it. These things needed to happen, to allow other more pleasant events to take place, and to teach me and awaken me.
Most of the moonchildren denied his existence too. They hadn't known him on the other side, and shared friend-bat's dislike for humans of the time in general. One even grew to deny the cat's existence, but since I hadn't met this moonchild on the other side, I considered her no more real in my story. Friend-bat had set aside her dislike of him, saying that if the cat saw the hawk within Victor then who was she to argue. Soul mates, soul sisters and brothers, long lost friends were reunited in the Great Family, but I saw myself as ultimately alone in that respect. Yes I had friend-bat and the cobalt lord (who we did find in high school) and others, but I was always the odd number when pairs were being identified. Because Victor wouldn't allow himself to remember. Because he didn't need to.
I felt very alone at times. It showed in my writing. I wrote a story called "Fog", about a girl sitting at the window, staring at an all-encompassing gray mist, thinking. We were the great thinkers. During lunch break while other girls our age were worrying about their weight or their makeup, gossiping or making out with their boyfriends in the corners, we were sitting on the floor playing poker and discussing the theories of multiple realities and non-linear time, while anything from Disney to Phantom of the Opera to Metallica played through my tiny radio. Beth and I spent the weekends of our senior year in the control room of the local public access television studio. We were among the first of our friends to go online, and of course we didn't follow the masses to the more popular servers, we sought out the cheap ISP's and freenets, which work just as well. We began web designing, building page after page. I posted "Fog" on Beth's Freehold, our little glamourous corner of web.
Many of the others began to fade back into subconscious thought. Though they will never fade completely, I feared I might be left alone again, without my clan, without my love, and without my spiritual Family. I resigned myself to the fact that I would always be alone. I drew some strength from it, I thought. It never occurred to me that I might simply not know what I was missing.