He's sitting in my chair.

He wasn't there yesterday.

He wasn't here at all yesterday.

I think I missed him.

His eyes light up when he sees me.

Or did I imagine?

Now he's looking at his phone,

with one chiding finger held up in the air.

I'm waiting, mesmerized by a smile that wasn't there yesterday.

"Look," he says, as if I could look anywhere else.

He's showing me a picture of a slug.

"Gross."

"Slugs are cool, man."

I step back and grin at this man who would show me a picture of a slug.

I laugh at this man who would even think to take a picture of a slug in the first place.

We look at each other, both still grinning about gross and cool slugs.

This feeling, it wasn't here yesterday.

I'm "well-adjusted," they said.

I hate that.

It bends everything that I've achieved and forces it into the context of your absence.

It belittles everything that I am and corners it into your looming shadow.

It breaks me into fragments of you.

Every ten years you gather the courage to contact me,

to ask me if I'm ready to move on,

to let me know you think I'm ready to be your daughter.

The gall.

I grew up lonely and hard and different.

Guilty,

all the while knowing I was a pawn.

Over and over, they asked me how I was doing without you.

I grew claws and sharpened my teeth.

Became "well-adjusted."

Wriggled out from under your silent, empty boot.

Now you beg at the foot of my throne for forgiveness.

I ask:

how have you been, without me?

You're standing on a rock on the banks of a wide river. Next to you is someone you don't know very well. She might become your friend eventually, but for now she's just someone to stand next to on a rock on the banks of a wide river.

Blinking in the sun, you're not quite sure how you got here. Obviously you texted her two days ago to plan this hike and then drove here in your car, sweating bullets the whole time because as a general rule you don't make social plans. Regardless, you have no idea how any of this came to pass. You don't recognize yourself as you are in this moment.

You smile. You want to scream in a good way. You don't know why.

It's sunny but it's cold. You wipe at your runny nose and silently pray to whatever benevolent being that she didn't notice you do that. She's watching kayakers in the white water. She's paying no attention to you.

You watch the kayakers, too. They must be freezing. "They must be freezing," you say out loud.

She shakes her head, still watching the brightly colored humans. "They're wearing skirts."

"Ah," you nod with complete understanding. You don't know what skirts have to do with kayaks.

You look away and adjust your hat. It's colder than you thought it would be but you refuse to shiver. You fill your lungs with frigid river air. There isn't a cloud in the sky above you. It rained yesterday. Your smile is a grin this time.

"I love this."

She finally looks away from the river. She raises her eyebrows at you. "You love being cold and watching other people have fun?"

You shrug, stupid grin still plastered across your face. It feels like genuine fool's gold. "Yeah, I guess."

You don't know her well enough to tell her the truth. You love this because you forgot what it was like to look forward to something. The dark days of white walls and blue light are behind you. You just want to scream, "I forgot what it was like to be happy." But you don't. Instead, you hold the words on your tongue and taste them. They almost make you cry.

You turn your lighthouse beam of a face to the island behind you. You wipe your runny nose again and walk towards the trail that leads to only good things. Your friend follows you from the rock on the banks of a wide river, laughing.

You never said a word to me

She faced you alone, eyes so wide

You pried my fingers apart until she slipped through

I screamed at an empty body

I wasn't ready

You made shadows come alive, days dimmer, nights longer

I cried over missing sounds

I didn't touch that ottoman for a week

I couldn't listen to those songs

I hated that they tried to understand my grief

"She's in a better place" and "I'm so sorry" shoved down my throat

Furious and sick, so sick

She's in a little chestnut box now but I see her

She's behind my eyelids and under the blanket

I swear to God she just went around the corner

I swear to God I heard her call for me

I swear to God she comes out of that little box when I'm not looking

But you don't let me forget

The dreams recede and sanity returns

I can accept her life is over and I am wealthy beyond words for having loved her

I know that when I let go of her, you caught her

She knew love with me

She knows peace with you

I found repose in understanding

You broke the frame and banished the margins

You turned the page and handed me a pen

I won't be so afraid the next time I feel your hands on mine

Vonrael Solus is the main character from my book "The Afternoon King" and is such a pleasure to write. This is what I wish his life could be like. Sorry it got a little long!

Vonrael sprawled out on his back in the clearing, soaking in the morning sun. Tendrils of clouds wove through the sky. He kept his eyes focused on the endless blue as they drifted past. The winds high above him called down with joy in their countless voices. He smiled back. He wouldn't be joining in their games today.

He patted the dusty ground beneath him. "I suppose you are too busy with summer to talk today," he murmured quietly. The mage listened as the earth grumbled to itself far away. The stolid element hardly ever had time for him these days.

"Are you talking to me or to yourself again?" Vonrael sat up as young Esrum emerged from the cave rubbing his eyes. "I never know who you're talking to."

"I was speaking to the earth," Vonrael answered.

Esrum narrowed his eyes in wary disbelief. "People can't talk to the earth. It doesn't have a mouth."

Humans cannot speak to the earth, but dragons can, Vonrael sighed inwardly. He rose from the ground and brushed the dust from his legs, saying, "I am a mage, Esrum. I can speak to the earth but today it is preoccupied."

The boy walked further out of the cave. The disbelief had softened to an inquisitive twinkle in his eyes as he looked up at Vonrael. "Does it ever say anything back?"

Vonrael remembered what he had seen in the wake of the armies: scorched fields, soaked plains, soil mangled by the wheels of carts laden with stolen lives. A sudden heat rushed down his arms. The mage pushed the memories from his mind as he shook an errant flame from his left hand. "The earth once asked me for help," he said. He tried to hide the edge in his voice but the child heard.

Esrum kept his eyes on Vonrael's hands as he asked, "And what did you do?"

"I helped it."

The mage laughed as Esrum stuck out his tongue. "You always give half-answers," protested the boy.

"There are some stories that you cannot hear yet. I have kept many things from you but today I will be able to answer some of your questions." Esrum opened his mouth, but Vonrael held up his hands to halt the river of questions before it began to flow. "However, I have already chosen which ones."

"But how?" demanded the boy. "I haven't even asked them!"

Vonrael offered Esrum his hand. "I have seen the way you watch me. You ask if I am talking to myself but you know that is not what I am doing." Esrum still hadn't taken his hand so he offered it again. "Would you like to know who I am speaking to?"

The brave boy took a small step forward, staring at the hand held out to him. His eyes darted up to Vonrael's and the mage glimpsed the frightened child he'd been not so long ago. Esrum reached out and took Vonrael's hand. "Yes," he finally answered. "Who are you talking to when there's no one else around?"

"Well, besides the earth, I speak to the winds the most." Vonrael took a deep breath and blew it out. "That is how I greet them."

Esrum took a deep breath and yelled. Vonrael raised his eyebrows at the noise that startled birds from the nearby trees. "Do you think they heard me?" Esrum asked with perfect concern.

A gust of wind blasted through the clearing. Vonrael and Esrum laughed at the clear answer. "They are the easiest to get along with," Vonrael said through a smile.

"Who else do you talk to?" Esrum asked. The boy gripped his hand in tight desperation.

"We will go to the river," Vonrael said and led the boy through the trees.

"Is it just this river or is it all the rivers?"

"I can speak to all water, but it is rarely worth it." Vonrael helped Esrum clamber over a fallen tree. "This particular river is kind to me. I grew up here next to it. The ocean north of here is not too friendly. The lake just before the mountains is indebted to me."

Esrum considered the mage's words in silence as they reached the river. Vonrael stepped in gingerly. A sensation like fingers wrapping around his ankles brought a small smile to his lips. Esrum stepped in after him and dug his toes into the silty riverbed. "Why is the lake indebted to you?"

"I helped it."

Vonrael couldn't help but laugh at Esrum's frustration as he stomped his foot and splashed them both. "Is there something you haven't helped?" he cried in exasperation.

The mage pursed his lips as he thought. Esrum pulled him along through the river as he chased a school of fish. "I suppose I have the favor of storms. I fulfilled the final wish of a Storm dragon."

"How?"

"That is a story for another day." Perhaps for a day that never comes, Vonrael thought. "I have not helped the frost. The frost has helped me, though."

Esrum huffed, "I won't ask."

"No, this is something I may share with you. The frost holds me accountable. It holds me steady. It reminds me that the power I have is only borrowed."

The boy stopped in his tracks. "Borrowed from who?"

Vonrael stood in a patch of sunlight. "I have told you of Beritru before."

"Oh." Esrum dropped his gaze to the river. "It's from her."

"From her and all the other dragons who have helped me. I would not be who I am without them." You most of all, Beritru.

"She's who you're talking to when you talk to the fire," Esrum said. There was no question. The boy was certain.

"Yes. I speak to the fire because I hope she hears me," Vonrael sighed. He raised his free arm to point to the sun. "But I know that she hides right up there where I cannot reach her. I know she is watching." But are you listening?

Esrum squinted at the sun through the leaves. He looked away quickly and rubbed at his eyes. "The winds are the nice ones, right? Do you think you could teach me how to talk to them?"

Vonrael tried to look stern. "You will first need to learn the rune. Even so, the winds may not deem you worthy of conversing with them. You must earn the favor of a Wind dragon before the winds will heed you."

The boy grinned up at him. "So you'll teach me? I'll finally get to meet a new dragon?"

The mage's facade broke and he tousled the boy's hair with a laugh. "Yes, I will teach you."

"When can we start? Can we start now? Please?"

Vonrael looked up at the sun in thought. What was is that you told me all those years ago? He turned back to Esrum with wisdom worn and ancient. "We will begin tomorrow."

I have found myself a microcosm. I have a habit of creating worlds where there were once none.

I’m surrounded by people who fascinate me. It’s not the colors of their eyes that entice me nor the ways in which they walk. Their various accents, constant reminders of our differences, only fleetingly amused me. I’m not amazed by what they are.

Someone here loves purity because he feels himself to be impure. He seeks truth in numbers and sounds. He pointed to an arch and stated, “I could write a series of equations to represent the exact curvature of that stone.” Bach poured out of his speaker as he said this. I believed him.

Someone else here loves everything that frightens me: verbal affirmations, holding hands, walking slowly. I give these things to her and in return she winks and squeezes my shoulder. I like to watch her fountain ponytail splash as she races to catch up with her friends, her wide sleeves flowing beside her.

And another someone has confronted emotions in a way that I know I never will. He captures meaning so crisply in word, and a simple sentence is enough to make me silent. We watched the sky darken until it nearly matched the blackness of the high roof. But there will always be a line that divides.

When I’m around these people, I’m so very aware of the things that I lack. I look around and wonder at the size of the cosmos. I despair that I’ll never be able to understand everything. And then I look at my new friends.

I don’t need to understand everything as long as I can simply appreciate the bits of worlds that fall into my hands.