What Happened?
He takes a seat in a high-back leather chair and folds his arms. “Why
don’t you report in detail how you helped the fugitives reach us?” He still
sounds like he doesn’t believe me. After all, what could garbage like me
possibly know?
I sigh, growing flustered. “I was having birthday cake at a restaurant. I
ordered lavender, but they brought blackberry—”
“I mean report the relevant details.”
“Fine.”
He lifts a finger. “Hang on, you were celebrating your birthday by
yourself?”
I glare at him. That’s right, I’m a giant loser on top of everything else.
“I’m on vacation by myself, yes. Not that it’s any of your business—”
“From what I remember, you spend a lot of time on holidays,” he
murmurs.
“Do you want me to report or not?” I say sharply.
I suppose I don’t need to tell him that my days of having luxury
vacations are over, that I spent five years eating store-brand cereal to save
up the fare. And tempting as it is, I will not tell him that he ruined five years
of careful planning by kidnapping me. “If you must know, Raphael, I saw
the demi-Fey through a restaurant window. By the time I realized who they
were, someone was watching us, and I was guilty by association. There
were Fey soldiers marching around. The fugitives looked terrified, and I
hate when people are scared.” My mind flickers with a memory of Mother
screaming that bugs were crawling on her skin. I clear my throat. “So I
pretended to be a tour guide and that they were my group. And I led them to
the docks.”
“And that was it? You just jumped in and brought them to me?”
“It wasn’t that easy,” I snap. “A member of the group panicked and ran.
Vena was separated from us, and the Fey soldiers slit her throat. That’s why
I didn’t want you to leave the others behind. They’re executing people in
Reklam
Obe Bed
“Welcome to the Hollow,” Jacks said softly.
Evangeline whirled on him. Or she tried to. Whirling wasn’t exactly
possible with the rope of flowers binding their arms. “You can’t just tie
people up and whisk them to wherever you want them.”
“I wouldn’t need to, if you would just remember.” His voice was still
quiet, but it was a dangerous sort of quiet, one that gave his words a bite.
Evangeline told herself not to care. But instead she felt compelled to
argue. “You don’t think I’m trying to remember?”
“Clearly not hard enough,” Jacks said coldly. “Do you even want your
memories back?”
“All I’ve been doing is trying to get them back!”
“If you believe that, then either you’re lying to yourself or you’ve
forgotten how to really try.” His eyes burned as they met hers; it was a fire
like anger. But she could see hurt as well. It came in threads of silver that
moved through the blue of his eyes like cracks. “I’ve seen you try before.
I’ve seen you want something more than anything else in the entire world.
I’ve seen what you’re willing to do. How far you were willing to go. You
haven’t even come close to that now.”
Jacks ground his jaw as he stared at her. He looked angry and
exasperated. He reached up, as if to run his free hand through his hair, but
then he wrapped it around the back of her neck and dropped his forehead to
hers.
His skin was cold, but the contact made her go hot all over. The hand at
her neck slid into her hair and her entire body went boneless. He held her to
him, fingers gentle and firm as they dug into her scalp.
This was so wrong, wanting the man who’d tied her to him and done
countless other unspeakable things. But all she could think was that she
wanted him to do even more.
He was like poisoned fairy fruit—one bite ruined a person for anything
else.
Before I Knocked
Before I knocked and flesh let enter,
With liquid hands tapped on the womb,
I who was shapeless as the water
That shaped the Jordan near my home
Was brother to Mnetha's daughter
And sister to the fathering worm.
I who was deaf to spring and summer,
Who knew not sun nor moon by name,
Felt thud beneath my flesh's armour,
As yet was in a molten form,
The leaden stars, the rainy hammer
Swung by my father from his dome.
I knew the message of the winter,
The darted hail, the childish snow,
And the wind was my sister suitor;
Wind in me leaped, the hellborn dew;
My veins flowed with the Eastern weather;
Ungotten I knew night and day.
As yet ungotten, I did suffer;
The rack of dreams my lily bones
Did twist into a living cipher,
And flesh was snipped to cross the lines
Of gallow crosses on the liver
And brambles in the wringing brains.
The love stories sold us the wrong thing.
The best kind of love doesn't happen on moonlight walks and romantic vacations. It happens in between the folds of everyday life. It's not grand gestures that show how you feel, it's all the little secret things you do to make her life better that you never tell her about. Taking the end piece of the bread at breakfast so she can have the last middle piece for her sandwich when you pack her lunch. Making sure her car always has gas so she never has to stop at the pump. Telling her you're not cold and to take your jacket when you are in fact, very, very cold. It's watching TV on a rainy Sunday while you're doing laundry and turning her light off when she's fallen asleep reading. Sharing pizza crusts and laughing about something the kids did and taking care of each other when you're sick. It isn't glamorous, it isn't all butterflies and stars in your eyes. It's real. This is the kind of love that forever is made of. Because if it's this good when life is draining and mundane and hard, think of how wonderful it will be when the love songs are playing and the moon is out.
Today was a sad, rainy day, without a ray of hope, just like my future old age. I am besieged by such strange thoughts, such dark sensations, such obscure questions, which still crowd my mind - and somehow I have neither the strength nor the desire to resolve them. It is not for me to resolve all this!
Reklam
Reklam