70. Bertram #3
Helena’s face was so open, so genuinely shocked and full of hurt that Bertram’s stomach flipped. In that moment, he had no doubt that her surprise was genuine, and that he had been really, really fucking wrong about her.
“Oh, Bertram,” Helena said, tears threatening to spill forth once again. “I hate—I hate that you thought that. I could never—I would never . . .”
Helena shook her head, and the sorrow in her eyes was mixed with a sudden fury.
“You know my mother was half-pixie. Even if you thought I hated my own heritage because she abandoned me—the closest thing I ever had to a mother was a vampire. The Person who was like a second father to me was an orc. You know that! You know I loved them. And I—I loved you, Bertram. How could you ever, ever have thought that I could believe human life was more important than yours? Nobody’s life was more important to me than yours! ”
“I’m sorry,” Bertram said, and the weight of how badly he fucked up hit him like a gut-punch.
“I can’t imagine how hurtful it would be to think that someone you saw as a friend could have such hateful thoughts,” Helena said, “but . . . ten years, Bertram. Ten years you knew me, and you didn’t think for one moment that you may have misinterpreted what I said?
That maybe you should give me the benefit of the doubt? ”
“I’m sorry,” Bertram said again. It was inadequate. It would always be inadequate.
“It may have been wrong of my dad to weaponize his dreams, but he would never, ever have encouraged me to see you, or Jennie, or Urghk, or any other Person as lesser. He just wanted me to be a practicing medical doctor. My specialty was going to be Magiendocrinology, so I could be a primary physician for any humanoid being, regardless of species.”
“Fuck,” Bertram said.
“Yeah. ‘Fuck’ is right. You were my best friend, and you abandoned me overnight because of a one syllable misunderstanding. You didn’t even give me a chance to explain.”
“I—I was so shocked, and so hurt,” Bertram stammered. “It felt like you had stabbed me in the back, Hel. I couldn’t bear the betrayal. I needed a clean break—”
“At the beginning of this conversation, you told me that if I said my dad was a serial killer, you would let me explain before you judged him.”
“Yes, but—”
“But I said I wanted to go into human medicine, and you decided that meant I was some kind of back-stabbing bigot not worth asking a single clarifying question?”
“I was young,” Bertram stammered. “We were drunk—”
“You didn’t say anything! You just left, blocked me on everything, and never spoke to me again.
You let me think it was because I chose to go to school rather than move in with you, because I was given no other explanation.
If I had any clue, if you had told me that’s how you felt, I would have crawled on hands and knees to apologize for that pain.
God, Bertram, I don’t know what I ever did to make you believe I could possibly have been so hateful, but I am so tremendously sorry—”
“Nothing,” Bertram said. “There was nothing you ever did that should have made me think you capable of that—”
“But you did,” Helena said, softly. “So, there was something—”
“There wasn’t,” Bertram said, and it was painfully true.
“I had never once witnessed you being anything other than kind and compassionate to everyone and everything—humans, orcs, leopardopterans, unicorns, birds, anyone and everyone. Which is why I felt so betrayed when I thought you had been—been hiding all that hatred this whole time . . . that maybe—maybe you just loved my mom’s work so much or maybe you wanted to be a countess, and had been tolerating me despite my heritage—”
The grief-stricken look on Helena’s face was tearing Bertram up. He had never seen Helena look so horrifyingly hurt, so shocked and betrayed.
“I just, I can’t imagine someone who claimed to love me ever thinking such horrible, horrible things about me,” Helena said.
“I did love you,” Bertram said.
I do love you, he realized, but this seemed the wrong time for that sentiment to be shared.
“How could anyone love me and think me so cruel?” Helena whispered.
“If you thought there was any chance in the world—you didn’t even ask me—you just assumed I had spent, what, ten years pretending that I viewed your parents as my own while being repulsed by them behind their backs?
Because I wanted a career? Because I wanted a title?
You can’t think that of someone you love, Bertram.
You really can’t. I don’t know what you thought you felt for me. But that? That isn’t love.”
“Helena—”
“No. I can’t. I just can’t. I need you to stay away from me.” Helena stood and stormed across the campground and into the lab, leaving a confused Lovey behind.
For the second time in his life, Bertram knew what it felt like to lose her.
This time, it hurt even worse. At least the first time he thought he had lost only the idea of the love of his life, that the actual Person he left behind was manipulative and cruel.
This time, he knew that Helena was as loving and kind and wonderful as she had always appeared to be, and the only cruel one was him.