Chapter 7

Up in their room Anna and Amanda sat on the bed with Therese and Laila. They were just talking, having fun. The girls made Adam relax to a degree where he even found himself telling them about his parents and upbringing. He had grown up in a small town, not unlike the one they had visited going to the mall, but even smaller.

"Yeah, it was strange. Sometimes when I went to school the streets would change. I'm not sure how but sometimes they were just, different. And you never knew when it would happen. My mom used to tell me a story about a young boy going home trying a shortcut that hadn't been there the day before. She told me that he just disappeared."

The girls listened to him, watching his face intently for signs of him making it up.

"You sure about this?" asked Anna incredulously, finding it hard to believe. "I mean, moving streets? You sure you weren't on steroids or something?"

Adam shook his head, his hair covering his eyes again. 'Shit.' he thought. 'This haircut freaks me out.'

"No, I'm not. When I try to tell someone about it I can't, and when I try to remember what I want to say, it becomes foggy. You're the first I've been able to tell it too. But I'm not sure, I remember it this way, and I believe it too, but it makes no sense."

He looked down at his hands as he continued.

"When they threw me into the orphanage the school was three blocks away and every day the first weeks I used to watch the streets, learning them by rote so I would know if they had changed. But they never did?"

"Well, usually streets only change when they build." Said Laila trying to make light of it, but for Therese it felt as something out of a ghost story, listening to him.

"Weren't you frightened Amanda? To get lost I mean, like that boy did?" Asked Therese.

"No, not really. The first time I was afraid was in the orphanage, and after that there were the streets of course. But the orphanage was the worst."

The girls remembered how he had looked as they found him, bloody and beaten up. And they couldn't help wonder why he thought the orphanage worse than that.

"Yeah." Said Anna at last, protectively moving closer to him.

"That was bad, but now you have me."

"And me."

"Me too." Said Therese.

Now all three sat close hugging him, whispering in his ears. Finding no way out of their tightening embrace he tried to tickle them. It worked better than he ever could have hoped for, but then Laila treacherously attacked him with a pillow.

From there sheer bedlam broke lose, well, not really. But it was a very good pillow fight without any clear winner. Even though Adam tried his best to prove himself the overall champion, with the girls ganging up on him, laughing derisively.

As they lay down exhausted the girls started to do things with, and to, him. Not that he complained, he was doing much the same to them. To Adam it was his slice of heaven having three nubile young bodies to play with, and being played by. And deeming by the sighs and pleased murmur's drifting his way, he thought his new girlfriend's to share his vision.

Now, there are different kinds of shyness. The one most common one is the one you see when someone tries to be invisible, having a hard time to say more than three words. But there exists other types too. Like those presenting you with a perfect surface, letting you believe that they are exactly what you see, easy talking, laughing and sharing.

But when you come closer to them you find them gliding away, their 'self' untouchable even in the closest relations. More often than not that is a coping mechanism protecting things hurt, sometimes so deep that the person acting doesn't know it himself, or is able to remember it. And so I believe it was with our Sarah.

Sarah hadn't lived on the streets, but she had grown up with her mother. A mother forced to always be the first to lose her job whenever the economy took a dip, and the last to get that new one, constantly moving. As well as chasing that perfect man and family provider. Most unfettered men shy away from marring a single mom. Why that is? Good question, but it is a known fact.

And that was the main reason he hadn't stayed to fight either. To him it was not only his crossdressing that might become questioned but his whole personality, all that he was. On that deep instinctive plane he knew that to stay could be the beginning to his end, therefore he had no choice but to leave.

Don't mistake that for cowardice. Few heroes has never been afraid, and loosing what persona you so laboriously have constructed for yourself under your years growing up? Would you yourself be prepared to lose that, over a mere job?

The real problem Sarah faced, wherever she went, was just that dual nature. Her ability to be that extrovert open person on the surface, shielding her real self from all, including herself. Somewhere inside her there was a child crying, but she had long ago lost the ability to hear it.

But Katrine could. How some unique persons can be, and do, such is another question I don't have an answer too. I'm sure most of you have seen that famous character Dr. Phil on your television, setting lives right like broken bones, by the hour.

Imagine your absolute counterpart to that, someone that won't tell you in three simple steps what you need to do, but listens instead. Someone that hear you so well that your words lose their meaning. That was Katrine.

You might argue that if it was something Katrine was good on then that had to be taking over other persons lives, commandeering them. And I would tend to agree, but that was just another aspect of her ability. She could see what you needed and make you find it just by being there for you. And most of all, you could trust her.

So, what would you deem the most precious, rare, commodity on Earth?

Platinum, gold, diamonds, uranium?

You're right. Trust.

To have trust and to find that one that won't betray. Even heroes will betray at times. Only lesser works gives you a hero without faults, the exception possibly being religious tomes.

To find that one in your own life that steadily refuses to betray, your bulwark against corruption, is according to my calculations somewhat less probable than to find that famous needle. Approximately on the level with hell freezing over, giving away free skates, muffler's and hot chocolate.

And in many ways that refusal is an innate thing, of the soul, not achieved through learning. So you might say that Sarah was lucky, she had at last found her safe harbor. But to find home, is that the same as recognizing it?