Chapter forty-nine
Several days went by as Aris and I cleaned inside the cottage and cleared the outside space of its shrubs.
I was adamant on helping, but I had a hunch that Aris felt I was slowing him more, though he hadn’t put it in direct words.
I’d argue every time he’d make an excuse— you need rest or you can’t afford to keep expending more energy.
Eventually he’d give in, telling me to do whatever I wanted. I knew I was thinner, much thinner than before.
Aris went through an old stash of his and found some dried-out seeds that he had left behind.
He placed it on the table in the middle of the cottage, attempting to lure me into a less strenuous activity.
It worked.
I walked over and began to separate the seeds without saying a word.
The moment Aris stepped outside the cottage, I could hear his audible sigh, though I knew he didn’t intend for me to hear.
My shoulders dropped.
I knew he was worried about me.
I knew I was quieter than I had been the last time we were with each other, but so much had happened. I’d changed. I couldn’t look at him. It pained me to look at him. Remembering everything that I’d lost.
While keeping my hands busy on my new task, my eyes flickered for a moment to find Aris taking his tunic off and grabbing a shovel.
He started digging holes for what I assumed were the seeds I would want to plant.
He had cleared the space earlier today for my garden.
I dropped the seeds that were in my hands onto the table and rushed out the door.
“That’s too deep for the seeds, Aris!”
“I’m not a gardener.
That’s your job.”
Aris gave me a wink.
I felt the heat rise past my neck, and my eyes fluttered everywhere but him.
I threw my arms across my chest and straightened my back.
“Then why are you here?”
There was still a fight within me.
Poor Aris.
“I wanted to help you, Solei.”
“I don’t need your help.
I can do this.”
“You can barely hold a shovel.”
His voice remained cool and controlled, but I noticed how his jaw tightened.
He was also angry.
He was also hurting.
Probably hurting for me.
And that hurt me all over again.
I took a step forward and paused.
“Leave me alone.”
Even the birds became quiet.
“Is that what you really want?”
Aris’ gaze locked with mine.
“It hurts to look at you.
I want to be alone.”
I leaned forward.
“Preferably forever.”
I turned around and slammed the cottage door.
My body dropped to the ground against the door, and I muffled my cries as best as I could.
I couldn’t have him hear me; it would hurt him.
This vicious cycle was going to be the death of me if he didn’t let me go.
Wrapping my arms around myself, I cried myself to sleep right there against the doorway.
A few hours went by, and the sun set over the trees as darkness crept in.
I peered over the window to find Aris had grabbed a blanket that was left outside, placing it in the clearing and was lying on it.
Most likely he was asleep, though I wouldn’t be surprised if he wasn’t since I could feel the cool breeze seeping through the cracks of the doorway.
The door creaked open, and I hissed at the coolness of the ground on my bare feet, but Aris didn’t move.
My feet brushed against the dirt, and I stopped where he lay.
“Aris, it’s me,”
I whispered.
“I know.
I heard you the moment you got up.”
Of course he did.
My body tensed, and all I wanted to do was leave.
I wasn’t even sure why I was out here talking to him.
“What do you want, Solei?”
Aris asked plainly.
The clearing went still.
I backed away, not knowing what or how to answer.
I turned, heading to the cottage.
Without another moment, I heard Aris jump up from his blanket, and he gently touched my elbow.
I froze.
Touch was not something I was used to.
But Aris didn’t stop as he pulled me to face him.
“Say something.
Anything,”
Aris said against the biting cold.
I folded my shivering arms, and I could sense Aris wanting to wrap me in his arms, but he was resisting.
He knew I’d push him away even more.
I stared at him.
“I—I don’t…”
I swallowed the lump in my throat.
“I don’t know why you’re doing this for me.”
“Because you’re worth it.”
“I’m not worth it anymore.
I’m gone, Aris,”
I whispered, the truth I didn’t want to admit out loud.
“I told you to leave me alone because—because I don’t want you to have to see this broken version of me.
I want to be alone so you don’t see the person I’ve become.
I want you gone because I don’t want to explain myself… I’m broken.”
His throat moved.
“Even so, you’re worth it.”
Aris took a step toward me.
“Every broken part of you is worth it to me, and I won’t stop until every cell of your being knows that.”
With his warmth near me, my body trembling became more noticeable, and it wasn’t from the cold.
It was from being deprived of something good—of something that felt a lot like…love.
“I can barely hold on to this reality with the thoughts that are consuming my mind.”
My voice cracked.
“I can’t think of anything else.
I can’t see anything else.
I can barely breathe, Aris.
I feel like death.”
The tears ran from my face as I searched for the breath that kept choking me.
“Sometimes, I wonder if I’m even alive.”
Aris’ arms wrapped around me, pulling me close to his body, and I broke.
I let it all out.
I screamed, and I sobbed, and I pulled his body and tunic closer to me.
I needed this.
At one point my legs gave out, and I fell on the ground, and he came with me.
And he held me tighter as I grieved the pain of the life I’d lived for months. Aris rocked my small, weak body in his arms.
“I’m angry, Aris.
I’m so angry.
I betrayed my body and mind and hid myself in—in more ways than I could count,”
I stammered between sobs.
“I’m angry I forgot who I was, the weakness I embodied for so long.
My—my brother wasn’t coming back, because—because he’s really, truly gone and I—I hate myself for not grieving for him when I knew I should have.
I lied and lied to myself—”
I squeezed him, holding on for more than support.
“And my family no longer breathes, yet here I am hardly breathing without them, and I feel so…guilty because of it.
I don’t deserve this.
They don’t deserve this.
And Rubert—”
I broke again.
Aris seemed worried for a moment I wasn’t getting enough air in my lungs because he kept murmuring.
“Breathe, Solei. Breathe.”
I continued.
“Rubert was my friend…and he’s dead, and I’m here.
And—and you’ve been so kind to me, and I’ve been so cruel to you.”
Aris brushed a thumb across my wet cheek.
“I’m so angry, and I can’t—I can’t breathe.”
A moment went by.
I had never said so many words before.
“Focus on the air that goes in.”
Aris breathed with me.
“What does it feel like?”
When the tears had dried and I couldn’t force anymore to come out, I sniffled, his oakwood scent filling my nostils.
“It feels cold.”
I chuckled softly through my sobs against his chest.
I could feel his smile on top of my head, and I added.
“It feels clean.”
“What else?” he asked.
I took a moment before I whispered.
“I can also feel my chest moving,”
I observed.
“My lungs fill up, and I can feel that, too.”
After almost an hour of crying in his arms under the cold moonlight and him talking to me through what it was like to breathe again—I felt a sense of relief, of freedom.
I felt lighter in his arms.
A few minutes went by in silence.
“I’m sorry, Solei.
Forgive me for what I did to you.”
“This isn’t your fault.”
I paused, bringing my head up to look into his eyes.
“I didn’t mean—I didn’t mean the words I said about wanting you to leave…”
“No.”
Aris shook his head, his body tensing.
He wouldn’t meet my eyes and turned slightly away.
“I can’t imagine what it must have been like to be in those cages.
I want to destroy Stroka all over again and again just thinking about you being there and I never knew… I would do anything to take those memories of yours away.
How could I have not known—”
“You couldn’t have—”
“And really what infuriates me the most is that this wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t—”
“Aris, you’ll have to forgive yourself the way I have to forgive myself.”
A pressure was building in my throat.
He slid his gaze back to mine.
A long moment passed.
“We can do it—together,”
I whispered.
He must have found something in my eyes because his widened a bit.
A spark casted above them.
His lips parted, and he blinked.
“Together, then.”
I grabbed his hand and pulled him into the cottage where he began a fire at the hearth.
He had been sleeping out here by it on a couch while I stayed in his old bedroom.
Once he finished making the fire, placing the logs in a strategic manner to ensure it burned strong and bright, I said.
“Stay with me.”
He pulled back slightly and looked up from the fire, meeting my eyes.
His brows lowered, seemingly unsure.
“Please,”
I whispered.
He nodded once, grabbed the candlestick on the small dining table, and met me in my bedroom.
We crawled under the cold covers.
Not a minute went by before I could resist it, and I found him under the covers, curling myself against his body and chest.
My body relaxed and leaned into his.