Ophelia
The tension winds so tightly in my chest I expect something to give. If only Bellamy were here, his steady breath, the familiar weight beneath the saddle, the rhythm of hooves against earth.
He has always been my truest release.
Instead, I am left with this man trailing my every step, and a confusion in my veins I cannot name.
I head for the infirmary. Everything in me aches, and still the day stretches ahead, lessons I must somehow endure.
The nurse glances up from her computer when I enter, offering a smile that falters the moment she notices the figure at my back. She rises from her chair.
“Ophelia. Let’s have a look at you,” she says kindly, opening the door. We step into the same consultation room as before.
I sit on the edge of the bed while she rummages in a drawer for supplies. She comes towards me and halts when she notices the man casually seated in one of the chairs.
Her eyes flick between us, and I lift my shoulders in a shrug, as if to say I’ve no idea what this nutcase’s problem is.
Judging by the dark look he shoots me, I may have said it aloud, or perhaps that’s simply his face.
“Please wait in the hall,” the nurse says, finally. “This is a private consultation.”
“I’m quite comfortable here, but thank you,” he replies, bored.
“I want you to leave,” I say, tired of his performance.
“Well, we do not always get our wishes, do we, princess?” he says, the title dripping with mockery.
The nurse looks between us again, but it’s clear she’s too intimidated to demand that he leave.
This is Saint Monarch Institute after all, everything here bends to hierarchy.
Judging by where he sat in the assembly this morning, and later in the dining hall, I’m almost certain he resides in the private dorms next to mine.
Which places him high. High enough that even staff tread carefully.
She’s frightened, and whatever authority she ought to have seems to evaporate in front of him.
It’s absurd, if you ask me. A teacher, any faculty figure, should be able to manage these spoiled brats. But they can’t.
She touches my leg to draw me back into the present. “Ophelia,” she says softly, and I startle. “Take off your shoes, please.”
I comply, slipping off my shoes and socks until my legs are bare except for the bandages.
She peels them away and examines the wounds.
“They’re improving,” she says as she cleans the cuts, the antiseptic stings and I wince while she re-dresses them.
“We’ll keep them bandaged for a few more days.
They’re deep and on the feet, so they’re harder to keep clean, we simply must avoid infection. ”
I incline my head without a word. The man, whose name I still do not know, watches me as though intent on searing through my skin, though I refuse to meet his stare.
The air between us is charged, his contempt so unguarded it might as well be spoken aloud. Yet, inconveniently, my own body betrays me, responding to him in a way I neither welcome nor understand.
Better to maintain my distance, I’ve lost years of memory, but that doesn’t make me a blank slate to him. He might be a stranger in my mind, but I’m no stranger in his.
The nurse finishes and looks toward the man before returning her attention to me. “I need you to lift your vest, or remove it entirely, I must check your ribs.”
I glare at the man now. “Leave,” I say through clenched teeth.
He smirks, which only makes me more furious. “I don’t think I will.”
“Why are you even here?” I ask.
“I have my reasons.”
“And those are?”
“For me to know and for you to discover.”
The headache starts again and is somehow worse in his presence, and my patience is thinning fast.
I take off my vest and then my shirt. I am left in a lacy white bra, and the sudden vulnerability makes my skin prickle.
He watches without the slightest attempt to disguise it, I feel the sweep of his eyes along my body and, against my will, gooseflesh rises.
Mortification burns through me when my nipples begin to harden, and I wish the floor would open and swallow me whole.
The nurse palpates my ribs, focused on the bruised area, and I tense beneath her hand. The man finally drags his gaze from the swell of my breasts, the lust in his eyes is unmistakable, but as his stare drops lower towards my ribs, it changes.
Midnight blue darkens to dead black. A low sound escapes his throat, but he says nothing.
“It’s healing well,” the nurse says lightly. “Just bruising, as the doctor told you. It will take time.”
“I’ll take a look at your stitches now,” she goes on, leaning in to examine the line. “Everything looks good. We’ll keep them in for another two or three days.”
She continues with a brief concussion check, testing my pupils, asking orientation questions, before moving on to my medication and diabetes. I tell her everything is in order, leaving out the fainting spells.
I dress while she makes notes in my chart. “Could I have something extra for the headaches?” I ask.
She glances up. “I’ll consult the doctor, though with your current medication I doubt she’ll add anything. The headaches are likely post concussive amnes—”
“I understand,” I cut across quickly, before she can finish. “But something to dull the pain, please.”
“This isn’t constant, is it?” she asks.
I nod.
“So you get a sharp strike of pain, and then it passes within minutes?”
I nod again.
“In that case, it’s not unusual in your condition,” she says carefully. “I would advise against additional medication on a regular basis. Stick to what’s been prescribed, and if the episodes worsen, we’ll review.”
I thank her, sling my bag over my shoulder, and hop down from the bed. I avoid the man in the chair and move past him without pause.
Outside, the wind takes my hair and the sky has gone leaden, rain threatens.
I head for the main building and, a few paces behind, the man falls into step beside me.
We enter together, climb the wide staircase and continue down the long corridor toward my class.
He remains close enough that his presence hums through me.
I’m almost at my classroom, grateful for the doorway that promises escape, when a shove throws me back against the stone.
My bag slips from my shoulder and clatters to the floor. The breath is knocked out of me, the world narrows to the press of him in my space.
He leans down, face inches from mine, his nose almost brushing mine. I can feel his warm, minty breath and the trace of his cologne, wild berries and rain.
“What the fuck happened to you?” he demands, “Why are you covered in bruises? And what did she mean by your… condition? I know she wasn’t referring to your diabetes.”
“Get off me,” I snap.
“Answer me.” He grits the words through his teeth.
“This is none of your business.” I bite back.
A flicker crosses his face. “You’re right.” He closes his eyes, breathes in, and when they open again that loathing is back, with brutal force.
“I. Hate. You,” he spits.
“I’m beginning to think the feeling’s mutual,” I throw back.
He continues without acknowledging my reply.
“And yet I can’t keep away from you. You invade my head, my heart, my blood, my whole being, without permission.
I loathe you for it. I despise you. And still, there’s this need to know what happened to you, this need to fix it, or to bury the person who hurt you six feet under…
” He breaks off with a violent shake of his head.
“You need medical attention more than I do,” I say, because I can’t help it. “You can’t keep kissing strangers, following them and hating them all within a matter of hours. Choose something and be done with it.”
He laughs, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “This—this thing with strangers again. You’ve always been a good actor, I’ll give you that. I was just too blind to see it, I suppose.” Anger skitters across him and the air between us crackles.
He watches me as if searching for recognition, for a crack in the glass. When there’s nothing, he huffs a rough breath. “Arlo.”
I look at him, stunned. The man is a study in contradiction, hot and cold in the span of a heartbeat.
“Arlo,” I whisper, because the name fits somewhere I do not yet understand.
The effect is immediate. He looks as if he might explode, barely holding himself together. His breath trembles as he buries his face in my hair, inhaling so deeply it sends the skin along my neck alight. I squeeze my thighs together, praying he doesn’t notice.
His touch is maddening.
This reaction is not normal. Maybe we both need medical attention after all.
And yet, when I look closer into it, I can’t escape the truth staring back at me.
My body recognises him, even when my mind doesn’t.
I don’t know how long we remain like that, caught in some strange trance, before he finally draws another long breath and steps back, shaking himself.
When he opens his eyes, a thousand things pass over them. I take in a small breath myself, the same storm answers in me. I see his hatred, yes, but more than that I see his pain.
“Who hurt you?” I find myself asking.
“You did.”
And with those two words—words that make me feel things I would rather not, he turns and walks away.
I stand there, watching his back for the second time today.
Once more, since I woke up covered in blood with no recollection of the last few years, I’m confronted with how little I understand of my life.
And I’m more certain than ever that I do not recognise the person I’ve become.