Chapter Sixty-Two. Rory
Rory
Later never seemed to come.
The days sped by, too fast to hold; mornings together in bed, limbs unfolding slowly from the heaviness of sleep; afternoons in sun-drenched glens, their fingers sticky with early berries and their mouths stained red with fruit and kisses; evenings of scrounged-up meals and long nights with Daye in his arms.
Rory tried to talk to Daye about the solution once, twice, three times. But she kept changing the subject—silencing him with kisses or skipping out of the room or insisting that she’d changed her mind. And Rory was almost glad to let the conversation wait.
I’ll tell her later, he told himself, after I know it actually works. There was no reason to go through a whole argument when there was a good chance that nothing would come of it.
He spent a few hours each day preparing to tether spring to their land, grounding the house and the area surrounding it in these sun-drunk weeks.
It was a lot like building a tent—little by little, he was stringing a dome of spring to stretch over these lands, anchoring it one word, one step, one gesture at a time.
He stole an hour here, a walk along the edge of the property there.
Daye never asked where he was going when he set out alone.
Sometimes she seemed almost glad of it. And though her silence made him uneasy, he couldn’t bring himself to press the issue.
Today, he left Daye napping on the dock, her hair a waterlogged halo around her, while he grounded the spring into the far bank of the lake. With that, he was almost done. A few more days, and then … and then he’d see, Rory guessed.
Daye was still dozing when he got back. He washed the mud from his hands in the shallows, kicked off his shoes, and crawled over her.
He pressed a kiss to her collarbone. To the curve of her breast, the fabric of the bathing suit damp under his lips.
To her stomach. He waited until her eyes fluttered open before he started easing her bathing suit down her thighs.
Daye murmured something unintelligible but spread her legs a little wider.
That was all the invitation Rory needed.
The hitches of pleasure in Daye’s breaths were almost lost under the sound of waves.
“You can make sounds, you know,” he said, face between her legs.
It took Daye a moment to answer. “What do you mean?”
“When we have sex, or when we do this”—he punctuated the word with a long, decadent lick—“I just wanted to tell you that you can make sounds, like I do, if you want to. To tell me if you like something, or just because. Just, in case you wanted to, or … I don’t know.
In case it’s something you’d like to try. ”
She propped herself up on her elbow. “I never thought about it.”
“You should try it sometime, if you feel like it.” Rory smiled, and licked her again. “Who knows, it might feel natural once you give it a try. But for now”—another lick, which made Daye shudder—“let’s work on making you gasp.”
Daye’s laughter was cut off by a long, breathy sigh.
“It’s amazing how much spring looks like autumn, only in reverse,” Rory said later, watching the setting sun coloring the blossoms on the shore Technicolor red.
They were lying side by side—Daye on her stomach, hand trailing in the water, and Rory on his back, letting the sun bake the sheen of sweat off his skin.
“Hmm?” There was something distant in her eyes, like she was listening to some far-off conversation.
It happened sometimes, lately. That feeling that Daye was not really there.
That she was lost in some secret world that Rory had no access to.
Daye always shrugged it off, saying she was woolgathering, listening to birdsong, “just lost in thought.” But Rory couldn’t help but feel that she was drifting away from him, little by little.
He didn’t know what to do, how to stop it, fix it, make her come back.
A V of geese wheeled overhead. One by one, they splashed into the water at the far side of the lake.
“What were you saying?” Daye asked.
“Nothing. Never mind.”
Daye hummed and shut her eyes, a door closing. How could she be so far away with his spit, his sweat, his come, still wet on her skin? He remembered when she used to look at him as if he were her whole world, like he was all she needed. He wanted that look back.
“Daye? There’s something I need to tell you.” An impromptu string of words, unrehearsed and unplanned. Look at me, he thought. Stop drifting away. “I got accepted to a program at a different university. One that’s pretty far, all the way by the sea,” he continued.
Her eyes finally opened, finding his. Relief and dread made his voice drop to a whisper.
“It’s four months long, starting late August. And it’ll be too far to come back for weekends.”
Daye stayed quiet.
“It’s a really good opportunity. It’s … There’s a good chance I’ll learn something new about a solution, about a way without using birds …” The lie just slipped out without him meaning to. Rory pursed his lips to keep any more half truths in.
“I thought you already had a solution,” she said, equally quiet, “and I told you, I don’t need another one. I changed my mind about my voice.”
Rory opened and closed his mouth. “I want to go,” he admitted, voice catching on the words. “I do think I’ll learn things that can be important for us, for you. But even without them, I want to go.”
Daye looked down. “If you want to go, you should go.” She sat up and wiggled back into her bathing suit. “I’m going for another swim,” she said, aiming a smile his way without meeting his eyes. A moment later she disappeared under layers of water, leaving nothing but ripples behind.
Rory remained on his back, staring at the sky slowly darkening from red to purple.
He’d just gotten what he wanted. He had spent the last months dreading this conversation, and none of the things he feared had happened.
There were no fights, no accusations, no ultimatums. None of the promises he feared he’d have to make.
So why did it feel like a door had just latched shut?
Why did it feel like, instead of tethering her closer, he and Daye had just drifted that much farther apart?
Five days later, Rory finished the grounding.
For a long moment he could feel the season shuddering under his fingers like a plucked string.
The vibrations traveled down and away, rippling to the edges of his land until, finally, they settled into an almost imperceptible hum.
With them, Rory felt something inside him settle.
A weight he’d been carrying for more than ten years, finally put down.
Daye was safe.
Whatever happened now, whatever he did, Daye wouldn’t fall apart.
The relief was dizzying. A lost, empty feeling, like he might float or fall. Rory didn’t know if he needed to laugh or cry or lie down for a moment and let this emptiness wash over him. He repeated it over and over in his mind: Daye is safe. It’s done. It’s finally, finally done.
Three days after that, Rory was on the train back to the city, not quite sure how his four weeks at home had slipped away.
Looking out at the sheep-dotted countryside, he promised himself that he’d tell Daye everything the next time he came, the moment he stepped through the door.
Or maybe he should wait to see if it held once the weather started to change?
It would be much easier to tell if it had worked once the world edged closer to summer.
Yes, he would tell Daye, soon. The next time he came, or, at most, the time after that.
Just a bit longer, he told himself.
He’d leave the appearance of tethers between them, if not the tethers themselves, just for a little while more.