Chapter Twenty-One. When Mending Dragons and Misconceptions #3
“I see how you don’t object to the part about us not being friends anymore. You have to tell me more than that, Farren. Why would your parents let him intern, let him stay at the sanctuary?” Cara asks.
“You know my parents.” Farren’s voice carries.
“They don’t know, do they? They don’t know all the awful things he’s said about you.”
Awful things I’ve said about her? Farren’s quiet. Too quiet. I wish I could see her face. What is Cara talking about?
“I don’t know why you won’t ever tell anyone what you are really thinking or feeling. Acting like everything is okay doesn’t make everything okay.”
Farren finally breaks her silence with a huff. “Fine. I’ll tell you. Murphy is as awful as you can imagine.”
Pretending, I will myself to believe. She’s pretending.
“As awful as I can imagine? Is that supposed to be reassuring? Farren, he called you a worthless know-it-all. A copper nobody.”
Cara’s words sink in, and with it my heart stalls and then plummets to my stomach. I know what she is referencing now. I have said those words. Just once.
Without a second thought I step into the dragon stall. Cara notices me first and freezes. Farren whirls.
“I need to talk to you,” I say before either can scold me for eavesdropping. “I can explain.”
“Explain?” Cara exclaims. “Don’t you dare insinuate I made that up. I heard you myself. I may not be silver bred like you, but I was on the tracks that day. Colm Ditters can corroborate my story. And so can every silver or bronze rider, I bet.”
“I did say that,” I admit. “But not because I meant it.”
“How else could you have meant it?” Cara spits.
I can’t take this. I need to make it right. “Cara, can I just talk to Farren for a minute?”
“No. I’m not leaving you alone with her.” Like I’d hurt her, or put her in danger. But I have.
“Cara, please,” Farren says, stoic. I can’t tell how hurt she is. But no matter how badly, I need to fix it, now.
Cara’s shock is plain across her face at Farren’s rebuff. “Oh right. Forgot. We aren’t friends anymore.” She marches out of the stall.
“Cara.” Farren starts to follow her, but seems to remember she can’t explain this past year. My mind buzzes. This must be why she hates me. One of the reasons.
“There’s been a misunderstanding,” I start.
“Oh?” Farren turns her anger on me. “You never talked badly behind my back?”
“I mean, yes, I did, but it was lies.”
“So, you bad-mouthed me with lies? That’s kind of part of bad-mouthing, isn’t it?”
“I don’t believe you are worthless or only a copper. How could I possibly think that?”
“I mean of course now you don’t think that,” Farren whispers, but her tone carries the anger well.
Damn it. She thinks my perception of her only changed after I learned she’s a gold-crafter. “Wait, it’s not just—I said awful things so other riders wouldn’t harass you.”
“Harass me?”
I tug at my hair, turn away before spinning back. I’m just going to say it. “Farren, you must know you’re beautiful.”
Her expression tells me this isn’t what she was expecting, at all. “What?” she gasps.
“Not many girls ride dragons or even step on the racing tracks. Other racers noticed you, talked about you.” I clench my hand into a fist thinking about what and how the other racers noticed.
Ranked parts of her body like she was an object.
“I said that stuff to shut it down,” I continue.
“Telling them to knock it off only seemed to fan the flames. Most quickly realized how it bothered me and would say things just to get under my skin. Some guys, when they can’t win first place, they try to take something else to soothe their egos. Others are just scumbags.”
“So, instead of telling your friends to simply stop, you call me worthless and ugly? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”
“They aren’t my friends.”
I think she realizes it then—how similar we may have been. How isolated we both are. How lonely I was before this summer. Before her.
“I’m not good with words.” Especially when it comes to you.
“I don’t know about that. You’re very good at insulting people.”
“You’re right. I was harsh. But I never thought you’d ever hear it.”
“Well, Cara did.”
That explains a lot. Why Cara always seemed to avoid me. She heard me bad-mouth her friend. I’d hate me too. “I truly didn’t mean any of it.”
Her eyebrows arch. “How can I trust that?”
Because I like you. You’re everything. Everything I’m not and want to be.
I used the term worthless because it was the antithesis of how I felt about her.
I think we could be best friends if we just got to know one another.
I don’t say any of that though. I can’t.
Not when she’s looking at me like she hates me.
Just because I know her secret doesn’t mean I’m even a friend.
I don’t know why anyone would like me anyway, except for my money or status.
Nonetheless, I step close to her. “Don’t I already have your trust? ”
She sucks in a breath like this is a shocking thing. That her trust for me to keep Nity a secret, to perform these deals, snuck up on her. And maybe it did. “You do,” she breathes.
“Then believe this. Farren Walsh, you are the opposite of worthless.”