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Sparkle
Was it really so hard to believe that he would never go back?
The shocking realisation hit him only a few hours after coming home, after the euphoria had started to fade. Life wasn’t going to be the same; his life couldn’t be the same as it had been before he left, even though to everyone else nothing had happened.
It was the start of something new, something Eric had never experienced before.
He was not going to wake up on a pile of leaves or on wet grass ever again. He could sleep in now; he could turn over and go back to sleep and not bother moving until past midday. He could make his own decisions. He could do whatever he liked, he didn’t have to obey Hank. Not anymore.
Not now they were home.
Not now it was over.
He had another chance to get on with his life; the second chance he thought he’d never get, a chance to shine.
But this time, he was going to do it properly. There would be no more cheating and lying and scheming, using his money to cut corners and smooth over anything that might stand in his way; doing all the times that his Dad had taught him to get through school.
And here would also be no more sleeping around, no more paying for anonymous sex with no thoughts and no feelings and not looking back or pretence. Not now he had a girlfriend. He would never do anything to hurt her, he’d confessed his faults and now she understood.
They were going to be together, no matter what stood in their way. They had made a commitment.
Even so, he couldn’t imagine how they were going to explain it to everyone the next day at school. As far as the whole of the universe (except the six kids) were concerned, they two of them hated each other. They always had. They always would.
But Diana insisted that everyone would know; Eric suspected that she couldn’t keep quiet about it, even knowing how hard it was going to be if everyone knew.
He wasn’t sure what would happen next.
It was certainly going to be difficult, not just the straightforward prejudice that he’d get from his Dad and his Mom and their perfect friends, or from the other kids he knew, but on a more basic, day-to-day level.
The people Diana knew were all athletes, he hardly knew them except by sight, and more to the point he had very little in common with them. He wouldn’t know how to act around them, he wasn’t even sure he would like any of them.
His circle of friends, or rather, the people he hung around with before the trip to the Amusement Park wouldn’t like him any more, and he didn’t like them. There was nothing in the whole world that would induce him to hang around with them any more. They were as narrow-minded, selfish and self-centred as he used to be. He knew what they would think about him now, he knew that they would see him as a wet blanket, there to dampen all their fun with a little thing called a conscience.
But that couldn’t be helped. He’d changed. He’d learned. He wasn’t one-of-them any more. He was different and life back at home, life after the Realm, was going to be different too.
The prospect of such a huge change scared him. But no more than facing Tiamat, or Venger, and he’d succeeded in that.
He had done that.
He could do anything if he tried hard enough. They had come back home, they had made it through everything the Venger had thrown at them and they had won. There was no going back to the way he was before. He really could do anything, now he was back home.
And she was worth it.