A woman walks by, muffs covering her cotton-packed ears. She brings her thumb to her mouth and bites on it in an offensive gesture. I lock eyes with her and relax my expression into one of cold, aloof elitism.I’m better than you, I try to say with a look alone.You think me less than dirt, but I’m superior to you…so what does that make you?
The look has the intended effect and she hustles faster. Disappearing. I keep the expression on my face, hiding how deeply the nasty words and gazes hurt. Even as I try to smile them away, Charles’s voice echoes, persistent after all this time:Who could love you?
I return inside.
I’ve hardly had a chance to sit and take my drink when Emily claps her hands and exclaims, “So, when will there be a new lucky someone?”
I snort into my flagon, coughing up ale. “Em, the ink on the judgment hasn’t even dried!”Now is hardly the time for this.
“You were married only on paper—to an ass, I might add—”
“Emily Datch,” Father scolds.
She ignores it. “—but not in spirit for years. Your heart wasn’t with him.”
It was, once. At least I thought it was. Charles told me he loved me and in less than two years…
“Being married on paper was enough.” I give her a firm look. She knows the lines I wouldn’t cross. Even if Charles was possessive, cold, and cruel, I had made an oath to him. One I was trying to break but…until it was broken, I wouldn’t cross that line. They all saw me as a scoundrel, a liar, an oath breaker. The only way I could keep my head high was to be a little bit better than they thought. I had to believe my word still meant something, even when everyone was trying to tell me it didn’t. I might have broken if I gave that up.
“I’ve had my love story.”As pathetic as it was. “It didn’t work out. That’s fine. There are more stories to write than just love. I’ve more important things to focus on.”
“You’ve always been ‘focusing on what’s important.’” She imitates me with her eyes halfway rolled back. It’s rather unflattering but I can’t stop a chuckle.
“Yes, and being focused is how I’ve become the best captain in all of Tenvrath and beyond.”
“A heart forever on the road can never settle with one person,” Father says gently. It’s an echo of Mother’s mantra—what always calls her home.
“Not you too, Pa.” I groan. “Listen, my heart couldn’t be fuller. You three meaneverythingto me. There’s no room for anyone or anything else.”
“You know what is important to us? You know what also needs to be important to you?” Emily points, leaning over to prod my chest. “You. Your happiness.”
“Your sister is right,” Father adds.
I sigh. This was not how I intended for any of this to go. But it’s better than them asking for details I don’t want to give. “I am happy when you are all happy.”
Emily puffs out her cheeks and scowls at me. Her square chin makes her face look as round as a melon when her cheeks are full like that. She looks so much like our father, inheriting his hazel eyes and strong jaw.
Whereas I’m all our mother.
My eyes are like the tempest sea, stormy grays and churned blues, as restless as my spirit. That’s what Charles told me when we first met. He was a child of the sea, too, so he could recognize it in me. He’d seen the majesty and the violence of the waves. How noble he’d sounded as he told me how he’d lost his family to it and dedicated his life to protecting others from suffering the same fate.
He told me stories of his life, full of excitement and danger. He could give me that life, too, if I wanted. That’s what he’d said. What he’dpromised…
I take another long sip of ale and try to banish the thoughts of him. It’s a futile endeavor. I could love him, hate him, resent him, be frustrated with him. But the one thing I can’t seem to do isnot careabout him. Everything is a reminder of him. Of the fleeting good times we once shared, so long ago they feel like a dream now. Of every reason I have to hate him.
“You know what I’m trying to say!” Emily continues, oblivious to my struggle.
“I do.”
“Then why are you being so impossible about it?”
“Because I am your older sister and ‘being impossible’ is what I am made for.” I grin slightly and push on her puffy cheeks, causing her to exhale with awhooshof air and bat my hands away.
“Look, Vic, if you don’t want to be with anyone ever again because it doesn’t make you happy, thenfine. But don’t do it because you’re ‘too focused on taking care of us.’ That’s not what we want. Trust us that we’ll be all right. You’ve been through enough; you deserve your happily ever after.”
I smile faintly, swirling my ale in the flagon, entranced by the foamy amber. I believed those words once, that I “deserved” a happily ever after. That everyone did, whatever it looked like for each person. But now I see it for what it was: a child’s daydreams. The real world is harsh, and cruel. Things don’t always work out, no matter how hard you try, or beg.
“I’m going to go and get dinner started.” Father sets down his flagon. “A celebratory feast won’t cook itself.”
