Chapter 5 #3
“This is like water torture!” She scrambles up and starts pacing, taking ten steps in one direction and ten steps the other.
I wonder if she’s counting. “Or sleep deprivation. It might actually be worse.” She whips around to face me, eyes bright, though they’re so full of emotion that I don’t know how to untangle any of it.
“A poem and I won’t give you a hard time tonight.
I’ll go straight to bed. I won’t even ask you to convince the club’s president not to allow Liam to join.
I’ll save all of that for tomorrow, when I might look at things in a new light, although…
I doubt it. I’m always going to want what’s best for Liam.
The best meaning not joining a motorcycle club.
So… tomorrow. When I’ve had a chance to try and sot myself out. ”
“This is… hard.” Awesome.
Nice, captain obvious. A poet you definitely are not.
Sloane’s eyes narrow as they rake over my face, digging for something I can’t give. “Do you have kids?”
“No.”
“Hmm. I guess it doesn’t matter if you don’t. You can still sort of understand. Probably…” She trails off but picks the thread back up after a long silence. “I’m going to keep doing dangerous yoga unless you tell me a poem.”
Of all the things I’ve been asked to do over the years, staring down a fucking poem shouldn’t make my palms sweat and my stomach roils. It’s not just that it’s words. They’re supposed to be beautiful. Lyrical. The complete opposite of what I am.
A hundred words jam up in my mind. A thousand.
More. My mind races. Thoughts tumble and twist. Maybe I should describe the sheer panic of being asked for such a ludicrous thing.
I can protest that none of my training prepared me for this, but shockingly, the words tumble out.
“We’re all here because someone else isn’t.
We’re a collection of memories. Of moments.
A life. Like constellations. Like a star burning out.
Blinding, and then gone.” The words don’t trip.
They don’t stop and restart. They don’t panic, and they’re not a cement mixer gone wrong.
My mouth has never been so dry.
My t-shirt is soaked in sweat. Thank fuck I shed my leather jacket earlier.
Sloane’s lips part and for just a few amazing seconds, her face transforms into raw, vulnerable, amazement.
She quickly shakes herself and clasps her hands tightly together in front of her.
“I guess I’m going to bed then. I’d prefer you weren’t creeping the door all night, but I get it.
I’ll try not to have disturbed dreams about all of this, if I get any sleep, but I make no promises.
” She reconsiders that. “I promise to give you no more trouble until morning, when I’ll wake up and we’ll no doubt start fighting about all of this again, because I’m stressed, this is our lives, and it’s a lot. ”
“Yes,” I agree, back to one word answers, but even that’s an improvement.
She takes a few steps and turns. There’s nothing locked down about her face, and seeing her struggle with her emotions to the point of being completely vulnerable, presses hard on my protective gut response again.
It’s all I can do not to move. I shut my body down and just as quickly, slam all the doors in my mind that want to go right back to all those unruly thoughts.
“I didn’t mean to be glib about what I asked you.
About… the PTSD and stuff. Or if there’s another reason…
Please don’t think that I was trying to make fun of you about it.
I wasn’t. That would be terrible. I might not like this situation, and unfortunately for you, you’re a big part of it, but that doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t have any compassion. I just—wanted you to know that.”
I’ve spent years working on myself, but Sloane just about undoes me with her liquid eyes and her heartfelt words. I can feel something trying to slip, something aching to burst out and get loose. I just don’t know what it is.
I give her a tight smile to reassure her and watch her walk down the hallway. Her steps are quiet, but not totally silent, and neither is the click of her door.
It’s odd, being seen. Most of my life, people were content to ignore me.
Teachers, adults, other kids. I did have a few friends, and once I made them, they were pretty much for life, but even they sometimes forgot I even existed.
It was so easy for me to blend into the background.
That never came in handy until I got some real training and worked as a team.
I had zero doubts that this was the right move when Tyrant asked me to do it, but after tonight, I know there are hairline fractures.
I don’t know what’s cracking either and that undefined part scares me as much as I’ve ever been scared.
I can count on one hand the number of times that I’ve truly been afraid.
If I ever tell Sloane that, will she laugh? Not at me, but in disbelief? Probably. She wouldn’t understand. Or, maybe she would, and that would be even worse.
An idea comes to me. It’s probably a bad one, but I don’t immediately dismiss it.
Once it gets traction, it doesn’t let go.
I have no doubt that in a few hours from now, a few hours after that, or when morning finally rolls around that I’ll still be figuring out how to make it happen, and gathering up every single spare word I’m going to need as reinforcement.