Chapter 38
Icouldn’t sleep.
It was about time I admitted it—I wasn’t going to get any sleep anytime soon, no matter that I knew I needed it. No matter that I knew this was the last night in The Ever. Quite possibly because I knew that, sleep didn’t just escape me—it never showed itself in the first place.
I took a bath, hoping it would calm me down, lure sleep to me sneakily. Didn’t work.
I sat down with my sketchbook, hoping my eyes would get tired if I just forced myself to draw something. Anything at all. The pen remained between my fingers until it began to slip from sweat. I couldn’t draw a single line.
So my last idea (before I lost my mind, that is) was to go outside to the mechanical garden again, and to take a walk.
My muscles were already used to the sparring Asha put us through, so maybe that was why I wasn’t as tired as I should have been after three hours of jumping and fighting.
Or maybe it was all those breaks she gave us today.
Or maybe…
I pulled the door open as I put on my jacket—the nights could get cold out there, and it was already past midnight. But as soon as I stepped out onto the hallway, I stopped again—moving and breathing and blinking.
March was sitting on the floor, his back against the wall across from my room.
To say he was shocked to see me there was an understatement. He jumped to his feet and looked at me like he still wasn’t sure whether I was real, or just a figment of his imagination.
I was no better.
Move, move, MOVE! my mind shouted at me, and somehow I was able to break past this ice that had suddenly wrapped around my limbs and walk out. Pull the door closed behind me. Make to walk up the hallway as fast as my legs allowed.
Not fast enough, though.
March seemed to appear right in front of me out of thin air. My cheeks were flushed, my heart racing, but I composed myself quickly. At least I thought I did.
“What?” I said with as much venom as I could lace my voice with.
“Where are you going?” His eyes were wide open, bright, mostly red. His hair was all over the place—he’d been sitting with his hands on his head when I came out the door just now, so maybe that’s why. He looked good enough to eat, even under the dim lights of the hallway.
And the lights did nothing to hide his audacity, either. “None of your business. What do you want?” I said, and tried to convince myself that I hadn’t missed looking at his face, especially from closer up.
Then the asshole leaned in and said, “You.”
I would have rolled my eyes properly if all this heat hadn’t poured over my entire body the next second.
Still, I was proud for managing to step aside and say, “Just stay away from me, Heartling.”
The words came out flat and dry—but he heard them.
Even so, when I made to walk away, he put his arm around my waist and pulled me back with ease.
Because I let him.
Silly, silly Ora…
“Don’t you think I want to?” March said through gritted teeth. “You can’t even look me in the face! I want to leave you alone—I just can’t.”
My poor heart. “Then try. Harder,” I spat.
He was towering over me now, his eyes all dark, no more red shining in them. “I’ve been trying.”
“Just remember last night and that should do it for you. It does it for me. I haven’t forgotten.” The way he’d looked at me. All those words he’d said. How perfectly worthless I’d felt.
March closed his eyes, breathed in deeply, and just when I thought that it worked, that he was either going to step away and let me through, or say something awful to me again, he didn’t.
He grabbed my face in his hand and moved me, pushed me against the wall between Reggie’s and Helen’s rooms instead. “You left,” he whispered, his warm breath blowing against my lips. I had my hand over his chest and all I had to do was push. Just push, Ora—push.
I didn’t.
“You just left. I woke up and you weren’t there and I lost my fucking mind.” Every word he said was like a rock thrown at me. “Why? Why didn’t you stay?”
I felt the hurt. I felt the pain in his words. I understood.
“Because I thought it would be easier.” Because I was a coward and I was overwhelmed and it was all too much too soon.
Suddenly his hand wrapped around the back of my head and he pulled me to his chest in a hug. Held me there so that my ear was pressed right over his heart, and I heard how fast it beat. I heard it as if it were in my own body.
“I pushed you too hard. I’m sorry.” The darkness inside me coiled tighter. “I didn’t mean anything I said. And I’m not trying to excuse myself, but that’s the truth. I’m sorry, Ora.”
My eyes were closed, thankfully, because those tears were vicious as they came. I wouldn’t have been able to keep them in.
I’m sorry, he said, and it was like the world was no longer dark, which wasn’t even fair. It was the anger that had kept me on my feet all day, the anger that had gotten me through.
But how was I supposed to be angry when he said I’m sorry, and meant it?
Because I was no expert in apologies, but I was twelve-hours certain that I was an expert on anything March. How he looked, how he sounded when he was honest.
Fuck.
“It’s fine. It’s…it’s fine. I’m fine, just…just go to sleep,” I muttered, half my attention on keeping those tears at bay. I would have said anything for a moment alone, but…
March let go. “I can’t. I can’t go to sleep knowing you’re mad at me.” He stepped back. The cold returned. “I’ll make it up to you. Tell me how—just don’t be mad.”
I shook my head, blinked my eyes a million times. Thankfully the tears were gone, and… “I’m…I’m not.” I really wasn’t.
How in the Everstill? How was I not mad anymore, just like that?!
“Ora,” he whispered, like he didn’t believe me—but I meant it. As much as it shocked me, too, I meant it.
“I’m not mad anymore,” I repeated, both for myself and for him.
A blink, and March nodded, hands fisted at his sides, looking like he was standing on needles. Time’s Teeth, he did not want to stand there and do this right now, so obvious to see.
I appreciated it that he did it anyway even more, because that was exactly what I’d needed to hear since last night, even if I hadn’t realized it.
“I’m not mad, Heartling. I’m fine.” Or at least I was becoming fine. Right there in the hallway.
“Happy to hear it,” March said, and stepped to the side. “I’ll let you get to it then.”
I wanted to leave, walk up the hallway, turned the corner, disappear.
I was already breathing so much easier now that we cleared that out, and I wanted to walk away, leave it at that.
In fact, if I took a little walk now like I’d planned, I had no doubt in my mind that I’d return to my room and fall asleep right away.
The storm inside my chest had eased. It was no longer raging.
But then…he was sitting alone in the hallway, whispered the voices in my head. He was sitting alone, waiting.
I swallowed hard. “How did you know I’d come out?”
Because he hadn’t knocked. I was awake all this time. He hadn’t knocked and he hadn’t made a single sound out here—I would have heard.
“I didn’t,” March said, chin raised as he looked down at me, his eyes saying much more than his words.
He hadn’t.
A second ticked by.
“Well? Aren’t you leaving?”
Aren’t you leaving, Ora?
“Actually, I think I’m going to just stay in. It’s late,” I said, despite my better judgment.
March nodded. Looked at me. “Good idea.”
My mouth opened again—will you join me?
The question remained inside me, too scared to come out still. Terrified.
I spun around and went to my room, feeling both wide awake and defeated. Desperate.
“You know, it’s the last night we’re in The Ever,” March said from behind me just as I reached for the handle of my door. I stopped, held my breath. “If you want some company…”
His voice trailed off. He didn’t ask, only offered.
My bottom lip was between my teeth to kill the smile that was trying to stretch on my face. I grabbed the handle and pushed the door open. Stepped aside and looked at him. Tried not to die of embarrassment when I said, “Come on in.”
He strode over to me eagerly. “After you.”
And just like that, we were in my room.
Silence for a tick.
I had my back pressed to the door still, unsure of whether I had enough strength in my knees to walk all the way inside.
March did. He made it to the middle of the room, looked around once, then turned to me.
He wore red today, too, like most days. Which was a blessing, as nothing else looked better on him than red. His shirt had short sleeves so I saw the curves of his biceps, too. And his dark gray sweatpants hung low on his hips like he knew exactly what my eyes liked.
Now I wished I could draw him. Now. Exactly as he was.
By the Everstill, I wouldn’t change a single hair on his head.
Then he smiled and my heart broke and mended again—same second. He came for me, both hands raised to reach for mine, and I didn’t hesitate. It had been tough the night before, and today. It had been tough out there in the hallway just now, too, but it wasn’t anymore. It just…wasn’t.
I put my hands over his and let him pull me forward. He walked backward all the way to the bed and sat down, brought my hands to the back of his neck, wrapped his arms around me. His face was pressed to my chest as he hugged me.
So easy. It scared me a little, because was life really supposed to be this easy?
For a while there, we didn’t move. He had his eyes closed as he listened to my heart, which beat slower and slower by the minute, and I had my hands in his hair, playing with his curls, swirling them around my fingers.
“You want to lie down?” March mumbled after a moment. “Or sit? Or stand?”
“Lie down,” I said, a bit breathless.
So we did.
This time, though, we were in my bed. This time we wore clothes, not towels, and this time I lay facing him.
We were face to face, my head over his arm, his other draped over my waist. It came so naturally to be like this with him, like we were made for this very thing.
Little by little, the world outside fell away. Sleep tugged at my eyelids, and at his, too. We looked at each other, held on as long as we could, but we were both tired. We both needed rest—and that was okay.
“We’re in your room,” March whispered, eyes half closed already. “Remember that when you wake up. You can’t leave from your own room.”
My heart squeezed tightly, mostly with regret. I really should have stayed last night.
Leaning a bit closer, I planted a kiss on his lips. “I’m not going anywhere.”
We slept.