Chapter 16 #2
He’s filled out so much since joining the academy. He’s now muscle and hardness where he was once youth and malleability. I watch with a level of unhealthy yearning as he flags down a server and orders each of us an ale. He sits down and leans back in his chair.
His entire focus now rests on me.
Unlike my earlier sparring partner, this look isn’t cold and calculated with a side of diabolical.
It’s familiar, welcoming, and warm like embers burning with nostalgia.
I’m not sure why he even entered my thoughts, except maybe to point out his shortcomings and Ambrose’s attributes.
A stark comparison between something good for me and something that would gleefully watch me crumble.
“Well, this is pleasant,” I say, scanning the room as cheers erupt around an arm-wrestling match.
A look of affection passes over his face. “Wait until you taste their home-brewed ale. Absolute perfection,” he replies, tapping his fingers along the grooved table. The steady rhythm is hypnotizing.
“I’m just glad you wanted to bring me here.” A small smile pulls at my lips. “It’s nice just spending time with you. I’ve missed you so much,” I acknowledge in a soft whisper.
“I’ve missed you, too, Nori. I wish we could meet up more often, but being an officer with a full course load,” he says, placing his palms on the table, “it’s just hard.”
“Oh, I completely understand.” My voice comes out a little too smooth and polished.
The last thing I want is to come across as demanding and needy.
“How about that blood initiation, huh? Talk about intense!” I throw it out there as informally as possible to gauge his reaction without implicating the weight his answer will bring.
“You’re not lying,” he says. “They certainly don’t do you any favors by warning you what you’re walking into, do they?” His eyes dart to the bar as if he’s looking for our server, but I get a feeling he just doesn’t want to meet my eyes.
“Yeah, and it’s all so formal and cloaked in anonymity,” I venture, staring at his face for a reaction.
He nods in agreement, but continues to look toward the bar, doing everything in his powers to avoid the conversation.
I decide to take it into my own hands and cut the bullshit. “Were you there?” I ask point-blank.
He pauses, his entire demeanor seeming to freeze before finally bringing his attention back to me. “I was,” he admits quietly.
His pale eyes hold me captive. Anxiousness stirs in my veins.
To suspect is one thing, but to hear the confirmation is another entirely.
He saw me at a very vulnerable point and witnessed another Veil carry me from the darkness.
Unless he was the one who held me while chaos ensued.
I have my suspicions, but lately, he’s so closed off that I could be entirely wrong.
He leans forward, his elbows resting on the table as he searches my face for the truths he thinks I should be given.
As if I’m not owed all of them.
I don’t move out of fear that he’ll change his mind and not want to discuss what happened. I hold his stare, but I refuse to ask more questions.
It’s his turn to offer answers.
He clears his throat. “Officers are required to attend. We don’t have a choice. Veils and Noctryns alike,” he adds before breaking eye contact and looking around the pub. His brows are drawn tight, and his broad shoulders tense.
So it’s like that.
Okay.
More secrecy, more games on who will ask the right questions to get the correct answers.
I’m so tired of pulling and begging only to get half answers and partial truths.
I’m exhausted from being the one who tries to keep this friendship afloat.
A person can only give so much of themselves repeatedly with nothing offered in return before they burn out.
“Is this how we’re playing it now, Ballard?
I have to come out and demand an answer before I’m on the receiving end of honesty?
Okay, fine. Let’s do it your way.” I lean forward, my face inches from his.
“Were you or were you not the Veil who restrained me and so helpfully poured the blocker remover down my throat?” I all but hiss, blinking hard to keep my emotions in check.
He can have my anger, but he doesn’t deserve my despair. That’s meant just for me.
He rubs a hand down his face and leans back in his chair.
It’s uncomfortable to be called out on your shit, so by all means, get as comfortable as possible.
“I would never let someone hold you in a vulnerable state if I had the opportunity to be the one doing it. I took a compromising situation and made sure you’d succeed. Just like I always do,” he responds, crossing his arms in clear defense. “Yes, it was me.”
The air leaks out of my lungs.
It’s not a burst, like you read about, but more of a slow trickle. As if it wants to remain as long as possible to witness your pain.
He clenches his jaw, nostrils flaring. “If I’m able to prevent you from failing or being hurt, there is nothing that will stand in my way. Not even you,” he warns.
The sad part is, I understand. I’d do the same thing for him, even if it meant that he hated me for it.
“Here you are,” the server says as she hands us each our mugs of ale.
Ambrose tips his head toward her in thanks, but I never remove my eyes from his face. “Enjoy,” she throws out, oblivious to the tension in the air before sauntering off.
He held me in his arms. He made sure I did what was needed to succeed at the academy. He whispered soft words in my ear that could easily be misconstrued for something else. I may have been out of it and incoherent, but I remember everything he said.
Everything.
The fact that he whispered good girl in my ear will be something I will remember on my deathbed.
I know underneath his strict exterior, something is there.
He’s just too damn scared to act on it, which is rather ironic.
He sits here spewing words of defiance in regard to allowing me not to fail when he’s too scared to even try.
“I wouldn’t want any other version of you than the one I remember from that day. I’d just also like the honest one who existed before becoming a Veil.” I beg him not only to hear me but also to listen.
His eyes shutter momentarily before he looks down and takes a big gulp of his ale.
I gingerly sip mine because, as much as I tried to be one of the boys growing up, I could never hold my weight in ale.
The last thing I want to do is get tipsy during this conversation since it’s the first time in a long time that he’s opened up to me at all.
“Right now, I don’t know what I want, Nori.
I know what I need and what’s expected of me, but I don’t know what I want.
” His fingers curl around his mug. “It’s not fair to you, and I know that.
I know you want more than I can give right now, and it haunts me.
I want to be the reason you smile and the strength you deserve, but right now, my loyalties lie in succeeding and ascending,” he says with a subtle shake of his head.
“Everything I have to offer someone is on a superficial level, and I would never do that to you. You mean too much to me for that.”
His eyes look somber.
My soul is breaking.
It would have hurt less to be stabbed in the heart with a hot poker.
I mean too much to him but not enough to set aside his ambitions and explore what we could grow into. What happens when we’ve outgrown the bounds of friendship but can’t move into the next dynamic? Do we wither and deteriorate to a point where our friendship can’t survive?
I refuse to lose him from my life, as I couldn’t survive the fallout, but I also can’t remain in this stalemate where my feelings are unreciprocated. I can’t watch the man I’ve slowly fallen in love with over the past decade lie in bed after bed of other women.
“Where does that leave me, then?” I ask quietly, afraid of the answer but needing it even more.
“In the same place you’ve always been, Nori. My best friend and confidant. You’re my home.”
I inhale softly, his words so unfair. “That’s the problem, Ambrose.
I don’t think I can remain in the same place I’ve always been…
” I say on a broken whisper, staring into my lap.
I don’t say more because I’ve laid myself bare enough.
He doesn’t offer up any words of comfort and I won’t search for them.
Instead, he reaches across the table, palm up, waiting for me to take the extended olive branch. A confirmation that I’ll give him space, and our friendship is solid. An agreement that I’ll fall on the wayside and bide my time.
“I’m just asking you not to give up on me,” he says.
Against my better judgment, I place my palm in his.