CHAPTER 11
APRIL
WEEKS LATER
There's something so comforting about sitting by the fire and working alongside others.
I love that everyone on the beach is so social, and it fills the lonely part in my heart that misses my old community.
I can't remember that community, but I know there was one.
We warm our hands near the flames and talk story, and it feeds my heart.
Dawn is cooking lunch today, a big fish stew over the main fire.
I'm peeling roots to help her out, and several of the kids and their moms are nearby.
Bianca is getting embroidery lessons from Callie, and Natalie and Dora are working on weaving dried seaweed fronds for rope.
At my side, Penny sips tea, her stomach upset from morning sickness.
Tal'nef is nearby, too, and I suspect it has something to do with Bianca.
He seems to show up a lot when she's around and pretends like he's not interested when it's painfully obvious he is.
"Watch," Penny murmurs into her teacup. "He's going to move closer to her again."
I peel another strip from the root I'm working on and glance up, trying to hide my smirk.
Sure enough, Tal'nef examines the knife in his hands with exaggerated movements.
It's bone, and like all the bone tools used, it needs constant sharpening until it eventually gets tossed.
It's not surprising to see someone sitting with the group and sharpening tools.
It doesn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary.
Bianca makes a face at her stitches, oblivious to Tal'nef's attention. She holds the leather at arm's length, eyeing it critically. "Ugh. It looks dodgy. What am I doing wrong?"
"You need tighter stitches," Callie says. "Smaller. Tighter. But not so tight it puckers the leather beneath it. It really doesn't look too bad, though."
"Yeah nah," Bianca replies, shaking her head at her project. "She's got a face like a dropped pie."
I giggle at that, because Bianca speaks English, but I swear she has some weird phrasing. She's told others that she's Aussie, but my brain isn't filling in what part of Earth that is. Just another piece missing in the scattered puzzle of my memory.
Across the fire, Tal'nef brushes the bone chips off his lap and wraps up his blade in his leather lap-cover. He glances over at Bianca's stitches. "Good," he says. "Good work."
"You don't have to wear it, mate," she replies, not looking up as she stabs her bone needle through the leather again. "Looks like a toddler got a hold of it."
He grunts, obviously not understanding her response, and gets to his feet.
"Watch," Penny whispers again, pretending to be really interested in her tea.
Tal'nef stretches, and when Bianca doesn't look in his direction to admire him, he takes a few steps away from the fire.
Pauses. Examines his bone knife again. Makes an unhappy sound.
He returns to the fire and sits back down again, this time a little closer to Bianca.
He unrolls his leather mat on his legs again and goes over his bone knife as if he's found a problem with it.
The entire time, he steals glances at Bianca, who is oblivious.
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing.
"Told you," Penny whispers.
"How did you know?" I whisper back.
"He asks about her all the time. Says two damn words to most people and one of them is 'Bianca.' Now we wait and see if resonance picks up on his crush."
Her response makes me squint at her. "You can't direct resonance." Hell, I know that more than anyone else. "It chooses. We don't."
"Mm, I'm not so sure there's not some influence there." She shrugs delicately and takes another sip. "Everyone always ends up happy, right?"
I stare at her. Really stare.
She just smiles at me. "I said what I said. Just because you're fighting it doesn't mean you won't end up happy. You wait and see."
Ugh. I'm not as certain as she is. I go back to peeling the root in my hands, sour on the conversation.
Why do people always assume that I'm going to end up happy with Valmir just because we resonated?
It's been over a month — the longest month of my damn life — and I still can't decide if I want to choke him or kiss him most of the time.
That shouldn't be how you feel about someone who's about to become your spouse… right?
Footsteps crunch in the sand behind me. I glance up to see Sabrina, her blonde head bent in towards Jason's as they walk. I can't make out their voices, but they're clearly discussing something important. Sabrina keeps her voice down, a low murmur.
"Wow," Jason replies, a little bit louder. "Again? Won't that hurt?"
"Veronica says they have to," Sabrina says.
They both glance over at me.
I stiffen, because I know exactly what they're talking about without hearing the rest of the conversation.
A few days ago, I sent Valmir off on another task for his honey-do list. This time it was for a shrub that grows on the side of a mountain.
I wanted the entire shrub, root system and all, and he was supposed to pot it in a leather bag and bring it back for me.
Would he be gone several days? Yes. Was it sending him far from home?
Yes. Was it supposed to be dangerous? Not really.
All the hunters head out solo from time to time, and Valmir and the others are constantly bragging about how efficient and strong they are at hunting.
Could I have gone with him? Absolutely, but that wasn't the point. The point was to keep him far from camp and give myself a bit of a breather. Fighting resonance feels like a daily struggle. Do I want to screw his brains out every time we're near each other? Yes. God, yes.
But the more time we spend together, the more I worry that being with him is wrong for my future.
I love being part of the community. I love being social.
I love being surrounded by the big family that is the tribe.
Valmir wants none of this. He lurks at the edges of every gathering, doesn't socialize, and has snarky comments for everyone.
If we raise a child together, is that child going to be a loner like its father?
Will I end up becoming more isolated because I'm with Valmir?
Will people not want to be around me or include our family in things because they know Valmir can be a jerk?
All of this worries me. Him being tied to me decides both of our futures.
It's one reason I've been holding him at arm's length for the last month.
It's been easy to push him away with demands of tasks to prove himself, to insist that he perform the duties (his "honey-do list") to keep him at bay.
As the tasks have marched on, I've come to really enjoy being around him.
Is he infuriating and snarky? God, yes. But he's quick witted and clever, and his sly comebacks make me laugh every time.
He's also incredibly attentive and focused on details.
He loves to learn new things and loves every challenge I set before him.
He wants to do things right, and more than anything, he loves a good rule.
He doesn't argue or try to push boundaries.
He wants to know what the boundaries are and then accepts them. I respect that immensely.
Now we're down to one last task and I don't know what to do. I don't like that he hurt himself on this last one. It fills me with guilt. It wasn't like I demanded he break his ankle. It wasn't like I dug the pit that he fell into. It wasn't like I pushed him in.
But I feel responsible all the same. He was out hunting for this plant because I'd demanded it.
It was because of me he was so far from the village.
If he'd been closer, the healer would have gotten to him faster.
Instead, they had to travel several days back to the village, and by that time, the damage was done.
Now that he's back? I'm feeling doubly guilty, because I've been avoiding him.
It hasn't been too hard to dodge him — Valmir's been staying in Veronica's lodge.
As the healer, she has a section of her home partitioned off for her patients, and he's been staying there.
Since I'm not injured, it's been easy to avoid seeing him.
Valmir probably thinks I'm mad that he didn't bring home the plant.
I've forgotten all about the plant. I'm avoiding him because I don't want to fling myself onto his injured body and fuck him senseless.
I don't want to weep about how he got himself hurt and scared the shit out of me.
I don't want him to know that I've had sleepless nights ever since he didn't come back on time and it's made me question everything.
Pushing resonance for this long has been a miserable experience.
At first, it was fun. Acknowledging that resonance was making me crazy with need for him made it easier to push it aside.
It was just biology having its way with us, and being able to say "no" added a bit of spice to the situation.
Each time we frantically touched each other, it still felt easy enough to say no, to shut things down before they went too far.
As time passes, though, the "no" becomes less easy. Instead of feeling in control, I feel frayed.
My nerves are shot. My sleep is terrible. I've masturbated more times than any human possibly should, and it doesn't help the situation. My body wants Valmir. My body wants a baby from Valmir. That's the trickiest part of all. How am I going to start a family with a man who's a loner?
I bite back the urge to explain myself to Sabrina. Of course she's going to try and make me feel guilty. She hasn't resonated. She doesn't get it.