Chapter 37 #2
Damn it, I’d deliberately waited five minutes to leave after he left to avoid having to run into him out here.
Now there he was, his eyes full, his cheeks pale when he turned to look at me.
I couldn’t even entertain the possibility that he might let me just walk past him, because of the look in his eyes alone.
There were definitely words on his tongue.
“Ora,” he said, only blood didn’t rush to my cheeks the way it normally would. All I felt was…bad things.
“Stick to Spade,” I said, and walked down the hallway, certain that he’d stop me. Prepared to shout at him if necessary, even run away from there.
But to my surprise, March closed his eyes and lowered his head as I passed by, and didn’t say another word.
I’d told him once that I didn’t like it when he called me Spade, because it made me feel unimportant.
But he had again the night before. He’d called me Spade, and I would rather he never said my name again.
It was just too personal, and now that I knew how he really felt about what we’d done, I preferred he didn’t get personal with me in any way, no matter how much it hurt.
And I would not cry. I promised myself after last night—I just wouldn’t. No more tears left in me, anyway.
However, when I went back to my bedroom, I tried to draw something, but the only thing I wanted to draw was March—so I refused. Tomorrow would be the last day I saw him, and I would rather start moving on tonight. I would rather talk myself into not feeling betrayed starting tonight.
I knew I had no right. I knew we never said he’d ever owe me anything. It was my choice to go to his room. My choice, and he wasn’t responsible for it.
He was responsible for being an asshole, though. But it didn’t even matter.
It didn’t take long for Anika to come knocking on my door—she’d come to gather us to sneak out tonight, it seemed.
I’d had half a mind to decline tonight—that whole moving on starting tonight thing—but the walls of the room were closing in on me, and I wasn’t going to sleep anytime soon.
So when she waved for me to follow her, I took one look back at the empty bed and sighed.
Might as well kill another hour before I had to lie in it and stare at the ceiling.
We went to the kitchen first, then sat in the garden in our usual spot between the two trees, stolen snacks in hand, eating while the gears shifted beneath us.
The sky above us was wound tight with stars tonight, and the Great Clock loomed over us, as impressive as ever.
All twelve of us were out together this time.
I sat with Mimi and Seth on the ground, opposite from March, and though I felt his eyes on my face every now and again, he no longer looked at me like he had something to say.
Which was somehow worse—and it drove me mad. I couldn’t figure myself out at all when it came to him.
“Tomorrow,” Russ said, leaning back against the brass trunk to our left. “By this time tomorrow, I’m officially done pretending this was a reasonable life choice.”
Laughter—and I smiled, too.
We were all ready to admit that coming to the Turning Trials had indeed been a bad, bad idea.
Seth glanced around the circle. “I’ll tell you this much—if we survive tomorrow still intact, I want it noted that I hated every moment of these trials.”
“That will be noted,” Mimi said cheerfully. “By absolutely no one.”
More laughter as Seth slammed his elbow into her gut. She didn’t even care.
“In all honesty, though, I did hate the trials, too. But I will miss this place, as strange as it is. I’ll miss it a lot,” she said. Something about those words that had my insides trembling.
“It is strange, isn’t it?” Erith whispered. “I loved it but I hated it.” A pause. “I loved meeting the lot of you sandbrains.”
“Aw, Err, how sweet!” Reggie mocked, bringing his hands to his chest while he batted his lashes at us. “I loved meeting you, too, little ticker.” And he pretended to wipe a tear.
Erith flipped him the tick, but she was smiling.
“For what it’s worth, I think every one of you is pretty amazing, considering,” Silas said.
Reggie gasped, the drama queen that he was. “Considering what?!”
“You signed up and came to Neverwhen with your own free will,” Silas said, grinning.
“You did, too!” about half of them said at the same time.
“In that case, I’m pretty amazing, too.”
“Considering!” Reggie shouted, and then the others laughed. My own smile took me by surprise.
The two of them, their body language, the way they made eye contact—their connection was…something else. Something I’d thought I shared with March before. Now I could hardly even look at him when he was looking at me. I preferred to analyze him when his attention was elsewhere.
I wanted to say something, too. A part of me insisted that I wanted to tell them that I’d come here to run, and it was thanks to them that I’d felt so comfortable in my own skin in the beginning.
It was because of them that I’d remembered what it was like to belong, to not just be by my lonesome all the time.
I couldn’t, though. The words refused to come out.
Russ then raised his banana in the air. “To pretty amazing, then,” he said, and the others raised their snacks, too. I raised my box of crackers reluctantly. “Whatever happens tomorrow, this mattered. Whatever we lost along these trials, we’ll always have this.”
My heart became heavier and heavier.
“To pretty amazing,” a few of the others said in unison.
“And to not dying. Let’s not forget that part,” Reggie said with a grin.
So we raised our food to that, too.
Our laughter echoed in the night, and none of us thought about that little door at the edge of the garden tonight.
None of us wanted to sneak down there and see if we could hear something else, because what would be the point?
Tomorrow was the last trial. We were going to play the last game, and then we would go back home.
There were no losers in the Turning Trials.
The Hands always won, so I tried not to worry about anything else, at least for tonight.
However, when we decided to call it a night and went back to our rooms, I didn’t even take my clothes off—what was the point?
I lay on the bed for an hour, then sat in the middle of it for another, hugging my legs, breathing in and out slowly, trying not to let my mind wander to the past, the present, the future.
I failed every single time.