From The Shadows
JUST NEED TO brush my teeth.
That’s it. The most basic thing. Even toddlers brush their teeth.
Seven days since the night at the round pen. Seen Eli five times, in passing. Talked to him twice, during our managed training sessions only. The ones we were strong enough not to postpone. Even then, he could barely look at me.
And I get it. Every time I look at him, I just want to die.
No, that’s not it. It’s the exact opposite.
But I can’t. And it’ll sink in, eventually.
Hopefully.
Forty-three more days. And then it’s done. I’ll go, and it’ll be done.
For now, I just need to brush my teeth.
My body finally obeys me, somewhat. My back is stiff as I stand from the bed, my legs too.
It was still dark outside when I got out of the shower earlier, but it’s well past dawn now.
Took me a full hour to get dressed, between all the staring at the wall.
Then an hour more since, just doing the latter.
Now teeth. But teeth involve the bathroom again. Which involves the mirror, and I already glanced at it coming out of the shower. There was this terminally ill patient that no hospital could save glancing back at me. No makeup either.
Zero energy to spare. Gotta keep what’s left for Ruin.
So no teeth. I’ll try again tomorrow.
I grab my coat and slip it on over my hoodie as I step out of my room. It’s overcast today, but the clouds aren’t too dark, so maybe we won’t have rain, just this foggy overlay covering everything. Fine by me. Won’t feel as guilty getting back to bed after training with weather like this.
Hood over my head, hands down my pockets.
There’s a few ranch hands chatting ahead, laughing as coffee mugs steam from their hands.
They sit on the long picnic table where I once made Eli’s mocktail—both times, plus one for me.
I hunch and don’t look, just make my way across the courtyard.
If they call me over, I’ll have to smile, and I just… I can’t.
Just get to Ruin. Get to the stables, check on him, hide in his stall until it’s time for training. And then power through that and come right back.
It’s easy. Forty-three more days.
I’m at the lattice arch, about to exit the courtyard, when I hear it. Gravel crunching, but it’s continuous, not the steady rhythm of someone’s steps. Not from the direction of the main trail, either, the one heading for the barns and other buildings, but opposite, from the path that leads to—
My stomach reacts first, clenching even before my head whiplashes toward the sound. One of Riverlight’s buggies comes into view. And I don’t check who’s driving it because I already know.
Shit. I should— I need to— Not his mom. I can’t.
But my body freezes. Eyes too, on the buggy, on her. Until she’s too close, and somehow my hand lifts when she waves. My lips too, a tug at the corner. Somehow. No match for her full grin, but that’s true even on good days.
The moment the buggy stops, hers vanishes, though, substituted by an even deeper frown mixed with shock. The face of a mother about to use their son’s middle name.
“Cassian Vale!” she shouts, hand on the buggy’s grab handle, body leaning halfway out. “You get your butt over here, mister. Right this instant!”
Oh boy.
My body is even stiffer than before, but that doesn’t stop me from materializing instantly next to her. “Mrs. Navarro, is everything—”
“Snap it!” she interrupts, one finger stuck in the air. “First of all, didn’t I tell you to call me Momma?”
“Y-Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, Momma.”
“Good.” That finger turns into a hand that reaches for mine as I help her climb down from the buggy. She still has her ankle splint on. “Second of all, why do you look like you’ve been a month in wrestling a hog over lunch and lost each time?”
A hog? “I—”
“You been eating? Don’t lie to me.”
“I’ve… Most times.”
She crosses her arms and lifts an eyebrow.
I gulp, wanting to look away, but her eyes don’t let me. “I… forget. Sometimes.”
“You forget?”
“Yes.”
“Like my boy’s been forgetting ”—she air-quotes the word—“since last week?”
Eli. Not eating properly since last week. Like me.
Fuck. My days have been hell, stuck on that night, on a loop between barely sleeping and barely awake. Crawling in the mud through an active war zone just to find one reason to get up, to take one sip of water, to put one corner of toast in my mouth.
The thought of him going through the same…
I bite my lip before it trembles. My eyes drop to the gravel, shame trumping the need not to disappoint her. That ship has sailed. There’s no saving face with her anymore.
Maybe that’s why I say it.
“You were wrong.”
Her arms drop to her side. “What do you mean?”
I sniff, wipe a tear before it drops past my cheek. “It wasn’t worth it. Nothing that hurts like this is worth it.” My hands flies to my mouth, clamps it shut before I start sobbing right here, out in the open, in front of this incredible, loving woman over her incredible, loving son.
She sighs. “Oh, honey. You’re terribly blinded, ain’t you?”
“What?” When I look up, she’s smiling again. Thank goodness. I can hang on to that.
“C’mon,” she says, slipping her cane from behind the buggy’s driver seat and entirely not using it, limping back toward the small cargo bed. “Help me with this, will you?”
I nod and follow. And then gawk at the two humongous picnic baskets, practically bursting at the seams, their tops loosely covered with the same checkered red flannel that wrapped her very-non-orgasmic sandwich—the one Eli shared with me. The day of our first kiss.
My throat hurts as I swallow the memory.
Jaw too, locked so nothing embarrassing comes out.
I do as she asks, grabbing the two beasts and nearly staggering at the weight.
She loaded these into the buggy by herself?
On that ankle? I don’t have the energy to scold her about it, and she wouldn’t listen either, but… She should take better care of herself.
Says the hog-fighting lunch-loosing terminally-ill-patient-impersonating high-performance athlete. Yeah …
I shake my head and trail after her, back into the courtyard.
“Momma Navarro!” one of the stable hands calls, followed by all the others, and then everyone is moving at once, coffee mugs abandoned as they rush to greet her.
She accepts their hugs and returns them tenfold, laughing and chatting with each person like they’re her own child. No wonder Eli turned out the way he did. It’s like nature herself raised him.
“Over here, sweetheart,” she tells me, tapping the picnic table. I do as I’m told, placing the baskets on the weathered wood. “Maria, grab some extra plates from storage. Jake, get on that radio and holler out. Breakfast is served. Cassian, help me with these lids.”
My name amongst the others weighs too much on my chest. I don’t belong here like they do, but I’ll work through the pang. It’s either that or she’ll do it herself, and that ankle doesn’t need the pacing to spread all these containers around.
Platters of bacon and sausage, still warm.
Freshly baked bread, freshly squeezed juice.
A massive bowl of scrambled eggs, another with fruit salad.
And at the bottom of the second basket, an orange sponge cake that makes my throat close up all over again.
I set it on the far end of the table, opposite the baskets I’m manning.
More people come, and I stand aside, hand over the baskets to someone else to finish.
I don’t deserve to be here. I’m sure no one wants me here.
They all know what happened—they must. Eli was happy and around me, and now he’s broken and we’re apart, so…
Two and two together. Bet they’re thrilled when I don’t show up at the cafeteria rush.
Bet they can’t wait until I’m gone and everything can go back to normal.
Eli can go back to normal.
Yeah. Yeah, he’ll go back to normal. I’ll be gone, and this will pass, and he’ll hold a condom box over someone else’s head, checking for the expiration date .
I just need to not be here.
Even right now. He’ll be drawn to the commotion. I should head on to Ruin before he arrives, give him the space.
I nod to myself, rub my eyes with my fingertips, then dry them on my jeans. Everyone’s focused on the food and each other, so no one will notice me leave. Hands down my pockets, I head for the lattice arch again.
Again, Momma stops me in my tracks.
“And where you think you’re going?”
My spine goes straight, all muscles tight. I spin to her. “I should—”
“You should park it on that table and eat,” she says, voice brooking no argument as she clamps me by the arm and drags me after her. And I now know how she managed to haul those baskets by herself. Holy crap, are her bones made of steel?
“I’m really not—” I try to say.
“You’re really not hungry. I’m aware.” She plops me on the long bench at the table, then sits right next to me at its head, on a desk chair someone snatched from a room. “Also not beyond spanking age, just so you know.”
She sets a paper plate in front of me and stacks a handful—literally, by hand—of each platter within reach. The last thing she grabs is my chin, holding and pulling it so close we’re basically nose-to-nose.
Then one word. “Eat.”
And I blink, and I gulp, and I pick up my fork.
It appeases her. She smiles and lets me go.
I push the eggs around a bit. I can do one bite, right?
Just to be polite? The eggs are fluffy and seasoned perfectly—I can tell by the smell alone.
The flavor explodes on my tongue at that one polite bite.
The second one is a forkful, and after that, I just shovel things in and munch and shovel again, breathing here and there when I must .