Chapter 12 Nyx #2
“My peanut butter cakes?” I ask, wiggling my feet against the mossy stone.
“Oh, no. We’ll make something even better. It’ll be so sweet, your teeth will hurt from the sugar and your stomach will ache later.”
I wrinkle my nose as he chuckles. “That sounds awful.”
“It does, but I promise you, it’ll be amazing.”
“If you promise, it must be true.” I peek at him to find him like me, with his eyes closed and face towards the sun, but there’s peace in his expression. We fall into another comfortable silence that isn’t quite as oppressive.
A thought that has plagued my mind for weeks emerges, and this time, I give it a voice. “Are the others frustrated with me?”
“What?” Reyes asks, sitting up and leaning forward until his shadow covers me. The sun makes a halo around him and darkens his face, but as I squint, I can see his confusion. “Why would they be?”
“Everyone waits on me… to take them to the rifts. They do nothing because of me. It is my fault we stand still.”
“That isn’t true,” he argues. “Think about everything that’s happening in the village right now. Harvesting, and repairing houses, and making this place a functional home again.”
“But I promised.”
“You can keep that promise when you’re ready, and not a moment before.”
“I wish I was not so scared,” I whisper, and Reyes’s face contorts as his eyes turn sad.
If the roles were reversed, he wouldn’t have these hesitations.
Wouldn’t wake up at night terrified at the mere thought of leaving this place.
A lifetime spent in a cage means I’ve become comfortable standing still, being stagnant.
In its own way, the village is its own special sort of cage.
It may not be made of iron bars, but it holds me regardless. “The world is so big.”
“It is,” Reyes agrees, absently tracing his fingertips over the rock.
“During those years I was alone in my camp, it felt like the world was limited to that place. Like it was no bigger than the walls that surrounded it, and life beyond just didn’t exist. Once I left, I felt like one of those helpless dandelion seeds in the wind. ”
“Carried along,” I whisper, and he nods.
“Forced by someone else’s wind to somewhere outside my control. And now that I want to go back—”
“Go back?” I interrupt, and the panic that waited in the recesses of my mind surges to the front. It sits on my chest like a weight until I can’t draw in air.
Reyes’s grimace is apologetic as he nods. “For a quick trip. It’s why I asked you to come out here with me. I wanted to tell you I’m leaving for a few days.”
“No,” I insist, my voice louder than he’s ever heard it, and his eyes flare wide. “No, you… no. Why?”
He stares at me for a long moment, then gestures towards the village as he twists to look back at the dense forest. “Our food won’t last the winter, and it’s my responsibility to make sure there’s enough to feed everyone. There is a greenhouse at my old camp that we need here.”
“Green house?” I ask, confused by his words. I don’t understand what he’s saying, or why it’s important enough to take him away from me. His eyes zero back in on mine.
“It’s a building made of glass walls. It stays warm, so plants can grow even when it’s cold. That way, we’ll have some of our garden inside it and will be able to provide for everyone.” He gives me a cautious smile. “You’ll love it, and you can spend as much time there as you want.”
I picture it for a moment—a place where the forest lives inside—and know it’s true. I would love it, but right now, I can’t find joy in the idea.
“You are leaving me.”
“No,” he insists immediately, then hardens his expression and tone.
“No. I would never leave you. I am doing this for you, to take care of you. To make sure…” He falters, glancing away as his throat works in a rough swallow.
When he continues, he speaks in the soft way he always has with me.
“To make sure you have everything you need.”
“What if I already have it? What if it is here?” Another of those pained expressions scrunches his face, and he shakes his head, refusing to meet my eyes. “What if I do not want you to go?”
“Let me do this. Let me take care of you like you deserve. I’ll come back.”
“You cannot promise.”
His eyes snap to mine at that comment. “Nothing could keep me away from you.”
“You do not know that!” My voice lifts, and his eyes grow even wider than before as I scramble off the rocks. My arms hug across my chest and squeeze, needing the pressure to ground myself. “What if they find you? Or you get hurt? What if you…”
My throat constricts, stealing the edge of my breath. It’s been so easy these past few weeks—pretending I’m not a slave to this broken mind. But I am. I always will be.
Reyes approaches from behind, but I only hug myself tighter. “Nyx, it’s alright,” he whispers. “We’ll be safe, and we won’t take any risks. No one is going to take me from you.”
“But what if they do? If they capture you?”
“Do you think I’d let anything keep us apart?” he asks, and his voice shakes just enough for me to turn around and face him.
“Us?”
His eyes always share his secrets, and maybe mine do, too, because for a long time we just stare at each other. Maybe he sees in them everything I can’t say out loud. “Yeah,” he finally breathes, then swallows, and I watch the front of his throat work as he gives his head a small shake. “Us.”
I want to tell him now.
That he’s made me want to be brave, and for the first time, I want more from this life. I need to show him why I don’t want him to go, and beg him to stay. Beg and plead that I might be enough, that he said I could be enough, and I’d try, I’d try, if he’d only give me a chance to be.
I want to tell him that I care too much to lose him, and I don’t know if I’ll survive if he’s taken from me now.
But I don’t tell him.
Because I can’t.
Because I don’t know how.
Reyes seems to understand that he’s dropped something on me that I don’t know how to respond to, because he nods and runs a hand over his hair, smoothing it back as his eyes drop to the ground. “I need you to understand that I don’t want to leave you.”
“Then don’t,” I whisper.
“What am I doing if I can’t even take care of you?
If I can’t give you the very basics of what you need to survive?
” he demands, his voice raising, but he isn’t angry with me.
“It’s the only thing I’ve ever been able to do, and if I fail at this, too, where does it leave me?
I have to do this, Nyx. For you, and yeah, maybe a little for myself.
Do you know how much regret I’ve lived with since the night of that attack?
How much that guilt tears me up inside? I need to prove to myself that I’m not a coward. ”
“More than you need to stay with me?” I ask quietly, and his entire face falls, but he doesn’t say anything, and I think that might hurt worse.
Those voices have me in their grips now, swirling and screaming that I was foolish for ever thinking this life could grant me something worth keeping.
That he’s leaving because he wants to, and I’m being tossed aside again.
Not enough, never enough, and if I’m not enough to make him stay, then he just needs to…
“Go,” I whisper, tears blurring my vision.
Go, before I shatter.
Before he’s reminded I’m a broken thing, and broken things can’t always be fixed, no matter how hard we might try to mend them. Stitches and glue may hold the pieces in place, but they’re never complete again.
Never whole.
“Not like this,” he begs, and my inhale shudders in my lungs as the first of my tears slips free.
“Please, Nyx. You are so important to me. Don’t make me leave you this way.
” We stand there for what might be hours, a never-ending supply of tears raining down my cheeks as he waits, and waits, and waits for an answer I’m powerless to give.
“Okay,” Reyes finally whispers, and the invisible hands around my throat tighten further as he takes a step back. He’d never force me to talk even if he can’t understand my silence, but maybe he should. Maybe he needs to grab me and pull me from this dark place, because I can’t get out on my own.
“I can see you’re upset with me. I’ll… give you space, alright?
We’ll be back in a couple of days, and I’ll come find you.
” Another slow step backwards, away from me, and I shove my palm against my mouth as a sob wracks my entire body.
The world is a blur as I watch him turn to retreat into the woods.
I rush over and grab the hem of his shirt, squeezing the fabric between my fingers like I have every time—desperate to get close and terrified to take the final step. “Come back to me,” I force out, the words torn and uneven. “You promised. Come back.”
He nods a few times, and he swipes his hand over his eyes. “I’ll always come home to you, Nyx.” When he turns in my direction, he’s uncertain. Crystal remnants of unshed tears cling to his thick lashes, and his gaze drops to my fingers wrapped around his shirt.
Ever so slowly, his hand reaches for mine. His thumb slides over my knuckles in the gentlest of touches, and my heart lodges in my throat at the rush of static that shoots through my body. My eyes widen as he glances at me in question, afraid he’s done something wrong.
But I can’t speak. Can’t move, can’t think, or hear or smell or see anything aside from him.
I can’t even breathe.
The world moves around me, lights and colors and sounds, but I’m frozen in time. No control over my actions, like there’s a stranger in my body, and I’m nothing more than a bystander watching as life happens before my eyes.
Reyes says something else, some sweet goodbye with a promise of his return and I nod. I don’t want to nod, but I do, and I say goodbye even though I don’t mean it. I don’t want him to go, and I need him to stay, but I’m frozen here.
Paralyzed.
My heart beats so wildly I’m not convinced it won’t jump right out of my chest and land at his feet, begging him to see… to understand what I can’t explain. What he couldn’t possibly know. One last sad smile crosses his face, and he walks away as the earth tilts underneath my feet.
I’ve experienced this before.
Been here.
Felt this certainty.
But it can’t be.
I know it, I know it, I know it, but it’s impossible.
My legs crumble and I fall to my knees, closing my eyes and lifting my face to the sun. Power courses through my body, untamed and uncontrollable as the branches lean in and reach for me. The ivy leaves its home on the trees as it comforts me, wrapping around my trembling limbs.
But the flowers don’t come.
They aren’t the ones I need.
“My flower,” I whisper, and like it’s crying alongside me, the wind howls through the valley below.
My mate.