Chapter 22
SULLHA
Yaaf retreated into himself.
Sullha had noticed the pattern. It was subtle, just a small delay in response, an unfocusing of his eyes.
She suspected that he conducted internal debates in those moments, not much different than what she did when she was deciding on what to share with him and what she should keep to herself for one reason or another.
Mostly, it wasn't to keep things from him but to protect his feelings or hers.
Now he was looking out across the play yard at Tomek, who had abandoned the climbing frame and was constructing an elaborate structure in the sandbox with the girl he'd been arguing with earlier.
Upon closer observation, she realized that Yaaf wasn't really looking at the children but somewhere beyond them, meaning either the tall concrete wall or nothing at all.
He seemed sad.
"How hard will Number Eight take it?" she asked.
Yaaf turned to look at her, his eyes refocusing. "He'll be angry at first, then he'll be sad, and then he'll come to terms with it."
"You sound like you know him well."
"I do, and so do the other six of our team. We will help him through it."
"Good. I'm glad that he will not have to deal with this alone. Still, I don't envy you delivering the news to your friend."
She'd had to deliver bad news to Yaaf twice already, once about his mother and now about his friend's mother. It had been difficult, and she'd not done either particularly gracefully. The first time, she'd blurted it out. The second time, she'd been more careful, but it still hadn't made it easier.
"Friends share each other's burdens," he said. "My team members were there for me when I learned about my mother's passing, and I'm going to be there for Number Eight with the six."
It was a nice sentiment, and there was a time in her life when she'd believed in it and practiced it. But life in the enclosure had stripped her of that naiveté. She had no one to share her burdens with, and she'd learned to carry them herself, not out of choice but out of necessity.
She had Tomek, and her love for him and his love for her was what had sustained her for the past five years, but he was a little boy, and he couldn't share her burdens. Nor should he. Her duty as a mother was to protect him from those burdens as best she could.
"It must be nice having people to share your troubles with, good friends who will always be there for you when you need them. I don't have anything like that, and I admit that I'm a little envious."
He tilted his head. "What about me?"
She swallowed, searching for how to express what she felt for him while she didn't know the answer to that herself.
He'd just popped back into her life and offered her hope, but he was not the same boy she'd grown up with, and she wasn't completely comfortable with him yet.
How could she be?
He hadn't evoked all these confusing feelings in her as a boy.
He had just been her friend. Now he was a man, a big, powerful man, and for the first time in her life, Sullha didn't consider that a threat.
She realized that she thought of Yaaf as a protector, and there was something incredibly attractive about that.
It occurred to her that this was how it should be between a male and a female.
Affection could only grow in a safe environment.
It was all very confusing.
Yaaf was still waiting for her to answer.
"You are not the boy who used to be my best friend. You grew up and you are different now. I keep looking at you and seeing the boy, and then realizing that the boy is gone, and that you are a man now. A big, strong man."
His expression hardened, and she realized that she wasn't saying this right.
"I'm not afraid of you. I don't want you to think that."
He was watching her very closely now. "But?"
"But it's confusing because I should be. We are just getting to know each other again, and it's difficult for me to reconcile all these conflicting feelings I have about you. With everything I went through, it would make sense for me to be at least wary, but I'm not, and that's what's confusing."
"What are you conflicted about?"
She drew in a breath.
"I don't know how to think about you. Are you still my best friend, or are you something different, something more? Something…"
She stopped.
The end of that sentence was a thing she had not let herself say, even inside her own head, but she'd felt it.
She'd noticed the flutter in her chest when he suddenly appeared beside her, and she'd acknowledged that it wasn't because she'd been startled.
She looked forward to his visits and was deeply disappointed when he skipped a day.
She craved his company, but she was not ready to give that craving a name. She was lonely, and he was someone she could talk to freely about things she was afraid to talk to others about.
That was the only feeling she was willing to admit to.
They were co-conspirators. He was helping her and Tomek escape this hell, and she was helping him by collecting information about others who could be rescued alongside them.
"Something what?" he prompted.
"I'm still figuring that out. The boy I knew was funny and kind, and he was my friend.
Our friendship was simple, uncomplicated, despite everything going on around us.
You are still kind and funny, but you are also a soldier who has been through hell and done things I cannot imagine and don't even want to.
You hide things from me, and I don't blame you for that.
I know that you can't tell me everything, and some of it is to protect me.
But that means I can't just pour my heart out to you and expect you to lend me your shoulder. "
"My shoulder is always at your service." He turned sideways, lowering one shoulder to demonstrate.
She rolled her eyes. "You know what I mean. When you ask me what about you, the honest answer is that I don't know yet because I am just getting to know you again."
His expression turned serious again. "I understand. It's all right."
She let out a breath. She had not realized how tightly she had been holding herself until she let it out.
Tomek's voice rose from across the yard, complaining about the girl ruining his sand structure. Sullha turned to look at him to make sure he was not crying, and he wasn't. He and the girl were rebuilding whatever she'd messed up.
When Sullha turned back to Yaaf, she found him watching her with the same careful attention.
"Whatever burdens you carry," he said, "I will be happy to carry them for you, and I will never use anything you tell me against you. You are safe with me."
She gazed into those blue, familiar eyes and saw the truth in them.
"I know."
"I'm sorry that there are things I need to keep from you."
She smiled. "That's okay. I don't tell you everything either, and not because I'm afraid of what you will do or anything. I assume the things you keep from me don't affect me, that you have no reason to tell me. I don't want you to think that the secrets you carry are creating walls between us."
He looked at her, then he looked at the playground, retreating inside himself again.
His expression had that distant quality about it, as if his mind had stepped out for a moment to conduct a private consultation with himself, while his body stayed on the bench like a shell waiting for the thing that animated it to return.
He hadn't done anything like that when they'd been growing up together. He'd always been present, but he'd gone through a lot during the past five years, and so had she, and she could understand that sometimes he needed a little time to gather his thoughts.
She waited.
Across the yard in the sandbox, the girl was getting tired of helping Tomek with the structure, but he was oblivious to her displeasure and kept issuing orders.
Yaaf drew in a long breath, turned to her, and his eyes refocused on her face.
"I am going to share something with you," he said quietly. "It's a big secret. A dangerous secret. You can't tell anyone, and I will have to make sure that you don't do that even by accident, which means I'll have to manipulate your mind a little."
She didn't like the idea of him entering her mind, but she was too curious to tell him to keep his secret.
"You've shared with me your escape plan, which is a very big deal, and you didn't say anything about entering my mind to ensure my secrecy. Why this?"
"What I'm about to tell you is bigger than the escape. So, is it okay if I enter your mind?"
"Will I feel anything?"
"Did you feel anything when I made you not see me?"
"I didn't."
"Then you won't feel this either."