Alone (DeviantArt)

Hollow. Empty. Vacant. Void. That was how I’d felt for so long I’d gotten comfortable with it. I could be in a room filled with life, buzzing around me, people carrying on with everyday tasks. I would watch them interact with relative ease. Some paid more attention to the niceties than others, eye contact, a greeting, chit-chat, and then a farewell. Then there were those who couldn’t be bothered to say, excuse me, please, or thank you, let alone squeak out a hello.

I sipped on my tea, watching a well dressed businessman wave off the server as if she were a fly. Yet the gentleman taking his seat across from him motioned her back, looked her in the eye and gave her a genuine smile. It didn’t matter what class they fell in, people could be as right as rain or as bitter as an arctic wind.

Yet as I sat basking in the golden warmth of an early morning sun, noticing the frown etched on his handsome face, and the furrow of his brow which drew my gaze to the overwhelming pain in his eyes, I gave pause to wonder if there wasn’t something more going on in the less than friendly man’s life.

There was certainly more to my own and while I too had dismissed my server rather coldly, the longer I sat here musing the lives of those around me I realized that sometimes the details, the little courtesies, can make a big difference to others helping them to cope with whatever trouble plagues them.

I’d left the lair early this morning, needing to feel the sun on my face and even the damp morning air on my skin was better than the dank musty smell that clung to my new home. I’d placed one foot in front of the other until I reached the little corner bistro, taking a seat outside to dine al fresco, but all I’d ordered was the tea.

The server came around again, a beautiful Latin girl with bright purple streaks running the length of the mahogany colored locks sweeping her hip. “Can I get anything else for ya?”

She had a classic Brooklyn accent and I could tell that she was less than happy with her morning customers as she popped her hand on her hip, batted her eyes and feigned a grin. I glanced at her name tag.

Looking straight in her caramel colored eyes I offered her my friendliest smile, not that it was much, “Another tea, please Angel.”

There was a little light in her eyes as I sensed the mutual exchange of respect as she raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow and the corner of her mouth drew up, “Sure, be right back with that.”

Glancing back at the table the two corporate men had been seated at I found it now empty and realized I was the only one on the patio now. Typical. I turned my attention to the street, watching the myriad of people on the sidewalk. With a sip of my now cold tea I mused over the craziness that was my life… so far.

Raised by a man I believed to be my father and taught to fight with precision accuracy since I could walk, I knew my childhood had been nothing that little girls dreamed about. There were never any hugs, no kissed wounds, no childish games, and I’d never had a mother, so forget something as trivial as a pet. Occasionally I would get to dress in beautiful silk kimonos, but that was only in formal business exchanges where my father deemed it vital to his image. Which what kind of image was it, to be terrifying, cold and devoid of anything but raging hate?

I was tutored, so I never met other children at school, nor did I celebrate my own birthday let alone another child’s. All the things that I now know or that I’ve witnessed about what should be a normal kids life, painted the picture of mine being nothing short of a nightmare. Many a time I’d longed for something as simple as a hug or even the tiny comfort that came from having someone to talk to… maybe a stuffed animal would have helped a little. I had none of those things. What I had was my own personal arsenal of weapons and an education in how to kill. And as it turned out, that man wasn’t my father at all.

So my world went from dark, cold, and violent to blurry and tepid, but still violent. I was trapped in a war I’d known nothing of and learned that I was a tool wielded to make my birth father suffer and the more I learned the angrier I became. Fury was an even blacker abyss than my childhood, it left me swinging aimlessly when I should have been cool and calculating like Donatello or plotting like Leonardo.

The thought of them, my newly acquired adoptive brothers and biological father, brought a strange ache to my chest as if I was frostbitten and thawing out. This terrified me. My entire life I’d practiced not feeling and here I was amid this close knit group that looked out for one another, fought beside each other, listened, played games, tended to wounds, played pranks, and even on occasion embraced. The blur of my world was suddenly a rainbow of colors all bleeding into one another and at the end of it was something golden, blindingly bright and promising. And if I could find the courage to walk toward it, I suspected everything might get a little better.

But then I was turned into a mutant snake, ended up rescuing my birth father from drowning, and was left with even more time by myself to think about everything that had happened. And in those moments, beneath a starless sky, in an alien controlled city, I found myself pondering the turtle boy who’d done everything he could to help me.

“Here’s ya tea,” the server, Angel, placed a silver tea pot before me, snapping me from my reverie.

I glanced at the steam rolling from the spout then noticed the girl had her apron in one hand. “Is your shift ending?”

“Yea,” she sighed, “gotta an hour break before I gotta be back for lunch shift then another hour before dinner.”

“Wow, that’s a long day,” I tried to appear impressed, knowing that my training schedule used to mimic her workday.

“Yea, well it’s this or go back ta dancin and I’m through with that. If I have to beat down one more punk who thinks I’m a revolving door, I’m gonna lose it.”

I found myself giggling. She sounded so much like Raphael that an image of him saying those things popped in my head.

“Ya think that’s funny?” Her bronze colored cheeks flushed.

“No, no, I apologize. You remind me of my brother when you speak and I couldn’t help an image of him dancing—it’s, forget it.” I shook my head before noticing her smile.

“Hey, guys do it too. Is your brother cute, he might be good at it?”

I couldn’t tell if she was joking or not but I was enjoying her candor and I now found myself imagining a dancing Raphael and pondered the idea of him being cute. Well, I liked his attitude but he wasn’t for me. His blue clad brother on the other hand… but Leo dancing was even funnier than Raph and I realized that Angel was staring at me while my cheeks hurt for the smile on my face.

“Wow, who do you have it bad for?”

Realizing that my cheeks were ablaze I ran my hands over them, “Oh, no! No, no, no.”

Angel’s hands gripped the ridge of the seat across from me, “Wow, you didn’t even know? Girl, I tell ya what, let me clock out and we can talk about it. You look like you could use someone to just listen… Hmm, maybe I shoulda been a bartender.” She winked at me turned and disappeared into the restaurant.

Do I talk to a complete stranger? I mean I can leave out the whole ‘he’s a mutant turtle’ parts.

Before I had time to change my mind she bounced back, yanked out a seat and plopped down opposite me, “Hi I’m Angel and you are?”

I looked at her heavily ringed fingers and smiled, for some reason this felt really good, “I’m Karai.”

“Well Karai, tell me all about this guy who’s making you blush. You don’t look the type for it,” she pointed to my studded jacket and bleached blonde undertones.

“I’m not,” I poured fresh tea in my cup, “well I wasn’t. I’m not even sure who I am anymore.” As I glanced in Angel’s direction I found her leaning forward, listening attentively and I liked it. Her eyes were warm and sincere despite the thick black eyeliner that bore stark contrast to her behavior towards me.

“Girl if you ain’t sure about who ya are, ya shouldn’t even be thinkin’ about no guys.” She tapped the table with her fingers and the black mesh rattled a little.

My heart sank and my stomach twisted, but Leo’s endless pleas for me to let him help me and the way his cobalt blue eyes would echo the concern in his voice, well it was part of the reason for that numb, tingling feeling in my heart and I couldn’t ignore it forever. It’s like he was holding a lighter beneath the iceberg in the middle of my chest and all the darkness surrounding it was melting away.

“I would agree with you, but he’s-” what could I say? He’s a mutant, turtle, with a smug smile and beautiful eyes who, albeit he can be arrogant, is the only equally skilled swordsman I’ve ever met. When our weapons clash I can almost feel the blade shaving off every layer of pain I feel. Sparring with him releases so much anger but it’s also building up tension, between us.

It’s like he’s determined to get to the root of me, to figure me out, to draw me in and with every fight, no matter who wins the match I fear he’s succeeding at earning a place in my heart. A place that no one has ever been, ever, not a parent, not a friend, no one and no thing has ever touched such a deep place within me the way Leonardo has. Because he was the first to care and that I would never forget. He believed in me from day one and long before I had any faith in myself. He’s both honorable and loyal, two traits I’d long desired in a friend and only such a man would I ever consider for a lover.

“Karai, you didn’t finish and ya blushin’ again. Girl, he must be some kinda guy.”

I dropped my gaze to the pale green colored tea swirling around in my cup. And it occurred to me that as empty as I had felt, I hadn’t been since I met him. Not when I was locked away in a dungeon, or slithering around New York as a mutant, even when I’d been mind controlled there was something deep within me that I’d been protecting, a tiny fault in the ice block that all began with the words, “I can help you Karai. There’s goodness in you I know it.”

For some reason there was a lump in my throat and something wet and dreadful in my eyes, “He believed in me, he’s always believed in me.”

Angel’s purple polished nails appeared over my hand, “Then maybe you need to let him help you heal from whatever it is that you are so obviously struggling with. You may look it, but I don’t think you are.”

“What?”

I looked into the other girl’s eyes and saw a reflection of myself, wise in the worlds of others and ignorant of my own. Her full mauve colored lips slid smoothly into an easy smile, “Alone.”