Chapter 31
“Wake up.”
I’m torn from deep sleep. It’s disorienting. Lucky Bunny is pressed so tightly in my hand that he’s left indents in my palm. I’m sleeping in Gryphon’s bed. He’s standing over me.
“What were you doing down there earlier?” he demands.
He sounds somewhere between confused and upset. I sit up and scoot back until I’m pressed against the wall. Goosebumps prickle where the backs of my arms meet cool plaster. “What do you mean?”
“Hanging off me,” he says. He strides over to the wardrobe and pulls out his bedding with such force that it sends feathers flying.
Papers, too, but he shoves those quickly back in.
“You were pretending to care for me, correct? If I may be so bold, could I recommend you spend some private time practicing? You had the element of surprise on your side tonight, but your performance was otherwise lackluster.”
I lean forward, my heart thudding, suddenly seriously annoyed. Hadn’t he been the one to lie to his parents that we were off messing around in the first place? I can’t get a read on him, and I’m tired of it. “Why’d you kiss me the other night, Gryphon?”
I don’t think he’s going to speak. And he doesn’t, for a while. Then, “You were all I used to think about, Rose,” he says, raw honesty in his voice.
The shock of his words yanks a strangled sound from my throat—embarrassingly close to a honk. I blink rapidly, wondering what in the Wall he’s talking about.
He drags in a breath. “I was ashamed to come to school with cuts and bruises, but you treated them like they weren’t my fault.
You cleaned me up, and then you’d ask me about myself.
” His back is still to me, his strong hand splayed out on the wardrobe.
“Do you remember? You wanted to know what my favorite food was, if I liked the color blue, if I preferred reading over playing marbles.”
I blush. “I was a lonely kid.”
“No,” he says, shaking his head. His voice goes soft, and he sighs. “You were thoughtful and clever and a gifted healer. And you were selfless, Rose. Watching you made me better, when I could have easily grown up to be just like my father.”
I slide off the bed and stand on legs made of glass. “You’re nothing like him, Gryphon.” It’s important to me that he knows that. As much as I don’t think I’ll ever be free of the image of him putting my brother in that basket…I don’t want my old friend to torment himself, either.
He continues speaking as if he didn’t hear me. “Then you were betrothed to Nikola.” He pauses. “And I had no right to you. Not in the way I wanted. It became easier to be angry at you.”
My heart kicks up. What is he saying?
“It took everything in me to avoid you those first few months after the ceremony, but eventually I made it a habit. I came to accept my fate. Yours and Nikola’s, too.
” Gryphon takes a breath before continuing, and the wait is almost painful for me.
“But what you said on the roof…” He trails off, as if scared of where the thought might lead.
Instinctively, I reach toward him but pull my hand back. I feel like I’m vibrating, more emotion than human. Of course we couldn’t have been together, but why have we sacrificed our friendship for the past four years rather than simply talk about our hurt?
He turns, staring at my mouth with an intensity that gives me goosebumps.
But instead of crushing my lips to his, his eyes return to mine.
“That’s why I objected in chapel yesterday.
” His eyes are blazing. “I don’t want you to be forced to marry me, Rose.
When you came to me tonight, it wasn’t lackluster.
For a moment, I believed you might feel about me the same way I feel about you.
I’m sorry for embarrassing you, and I’m forever sorry for being a part of Jonas’s Harvest.”
I nod, tears pricking my eyes, because I think he’s telling the truth. “I believe you,” I say, but what I mean is, as much as I can forgive you, I do. But it’s too late. As soon as the tablet is charged, I must leave him behind forever.