I laughed. “What about your plants? The trees?”
“I can do both! I could. I know I could. You gotta believe me!” But then, amazingly, his eyes began to fill with tears. “But—but….”
“Oh no,” I groaned. “Don’t cry. Please don’t cry. I am absolutely terrible when other people cry. I get so damn awkward that—”
“But no one will ever love me!” he wailed, throwing his head back and twisting his massive body until he lay on his back. “I’m going to be alone forever!”
“Oh,” I said. “Noooo. Noooo, of course not.” I leaned forward and patted the side of his head clumsily. “There, there. Oh, you. You’re just… swell.”
“Swell? I’m swell? I don’t want to be swell! I want to be in love!”
“O… kay. Uh. It’ll happen. When it happens? To you. It’s like, um. Your plants here. They. Grow. Like love does?”
“Wow! Thank you so much for the sound advice! Gosh, what would I have done without you!”
“Oh my gods.”
“Not that it matters, anyway,” he grumbled. “S’not like anything is gonna happen.”
“Oh. Come on, you. You got this. Why would you say that?”
“Have you seen me? I scare everyone.”
“Oh,” I said. “Noooo. Of course not. That’s not—noooo.”
He hissed at me, hood unfurling partially, spikes rattling.
I squeaked, “Kill it with fire!” Then, “I mean, wow. You’re—if only I was, like, seven years younger. And single. And a dragon. And into that.”
“See! I scare everyone!”
I tried to be as stern as possible. “You’re a little young for that, don’t you think?”
“No! No, I am fourteen years old. I know what I want!”
“I don’t think so, Zero. I’m pretty sure you’re not thinking very clearly about this.”
“I am thinking clearly! You just don’t understand what it’s like to be my age!”
“Uh, I was your age once.”
“Yeah, when the giant yaks roamed the earth. That was like, forever ago. You don’t get what it’s like to be a young person. My feelings are real and valid and everything I say comes from my life experience.”
I snorted. “Yeah. Life experience. Okay. Because you have so much of that.”
He glared at me upside-down. “Whatever. I don’t need this. You don’t get to tell me what to do.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Now, you listen here, young man. I will not sit here and listen to you disrespect me like this. If you think that you’re going to talk to me like that, you’ve got another—”
“I don’t care! You don’t know me. You don’t know my life. You’re not even my real dad!”
“What? That hurts, Zero. That hurts. Do you know what I’ve done for you? I’ve—oh my fucking gods. What the fuck am I even talking about?”
“You’re trying to stifle me as a person!” Zero cried. “I am an individual. You need to respect that! I will spread my wings and fly, and there is nothing you can do about it!”
“No,” I said, standing up against the tree. “No, no, no. I am not going to turn into Gary and Kevin. I swear to the gods. This is some weird freaky-deaky parental magic shit or something. That’s all it is!”
“Maybe I’ll go out and find someone right now,” Zero growled. “Because I can do what I want.”
“Oh no you won’t,” I snapped. “You don’t know what kind of strangers are out there—how are you making me do this?” I slapped my hand over my mouth, trying to keep myself from vomiting more parenting all over the place.
“You can’t tell me how to live! I am a free spirit. I go where the wind blows!”
I had to resist the urge to tell him that I knew what I was talking about, that I’d lived a lot longer than he had, and that he should listen to me. But I realized how that sounded, and I hadn’t come here for this. For any of this. I didn’t need to be a parent to an emo snake dragon, especially when Kevin thought said emo dragon was his little brother while also thinking he was my stepfather.
I really needed to sit down and make a pros and cons list about the choices I’d made to get to this point.
“Look.” I dropped my hand, trying to regain control of the situation. “You’re… neat. You’ll find what you want with who you want when it’s time. Not before. And not before I ask you for your help.”
He cut off his whining almost immediately and opened one eye to look at me. “My help.”
I sighed. “You know what I’m talking about.”
“Oh. Do I?”
“Zero.”
“Mr. Wilds.”
I groaned. “My name is Sam. And yes, you know. The star dragon. What did the he tell you?”
“Maybe that’s private.”
“Zero.”
“Your face gets really red when you get mad.”
“I’m not mad,” I said through gritted teeth.
“You sound kind of mad. Or constipated. I don’t know which.”
“Look. I just… we need to know.”
“What will you do for me if I help you?”
“What?”
He rolled over and laid his head near my feet. “It seems like you need me for this. What will I get if I help you? The star dragon said I had a choice. Said there was another too.”
And that… well. That’s when I stopped playing games. I told him what Morgan told me. About Myrin. About the end. About why he’d had to lock away his only family into the shadow realm. About what it meant to forsake a cornerstone once found. The corruption in the soul that came from it. The malice in the heart.
Zero remained silent while I spoke, understanding that I was no longer interested in placating him. He looked shaken by the time I’d finished. My voice was hoarse, and it was like I’d heard it all over again for the first time. I hadn’t said anything to anyone about this, not even Ryan. Randall and Morgan’s secret had become my own, but I was tired of bearing the weight.
It was quiet for a long while after I’d finished speaking.
Then:
“You’re serious.”
“Yes,” I said.
“And you really need me?” His voice sounded small.
“Yes.”
“What can I do?”
“I don’t know yet,” I admitted. “But it must be something.”
“He told me. That a boy wizard would come. That he would need my help. That I would need to make a choice. That I could choose to help you. That I could choose to help the other. Or I could do nothing.”
“And he hasn’t been here? The other.”
Zero shook his head. “No. Just you.”
“Those are some serious choices you have to consider.”
“They are, aren’t they? I asked him what I should do. What was the right choice to make. Do you know what he told me?”