Our Infinite Fates

THE NEXT DAY WAS agonizing – in more ways than one.

When I told Arden the news about the emergency appointment, he allowed himself the smallest glint of relief, of hope, before switching straight back into detached mode.

His anger from the bookshop cooled and hardened. I got the sense his hostile introversion was driven by shame – at the way he’d had to threaten me all over again, the crassness of it so at odds with who he really was. Quills and inkwells, soft parchment and warm jumpers, vials of sugar water and twangy folk music, carefully pressed flower petals between tissue paper.

In any case, he barely looked at me as we repaired fences and trundled around the fields. A few times I tried to start conversation – asking questions about what he was doing with the crops, voicing some fears over the impending marrow harvest – but I was greeted with grunts and one-word answers.