Silva was relieved she had her own entrance at her grandmother's house, choosing to move there once her lease was up, rather than being forced to spar with her mother every day. She'd not needed to come home, of course. She knew if she would have thrown even a minor tantrum, her parents would have paid her lease for another year, but much like the town itself, her darling little apartment was ruined for her.
He was there, eating peanut butter out of the jar with a spoon on her sofa, paging through her book. He was there, pacing around her bedroom, inspecting his clothing options in a panic. He was there in her kitchen, making her strawberry crepes, swiping a dusting of powdered sugar on the tip of her nose. He was there in her bed, arms around her, his heartbeat a solid, steady thump beneath her ear. Waking alone in that bed had been the worst of it. Still able to feel the warmth of his arms, the soft huff of his breath, warm on her face from their shared pillow, his fingers in her hair . . . waking to find herself alone, knowing that she would not feel the thump of his heartbeat again made staying in the apartment an impossibility.
He had never been in her grandmother's house, did not echo from the corners there, and the pillow in her bed there had never held the indentation of his head. There was no memory of him there, she would tell herself, unable to sleep, doing nothingbutremembering.
She got in the habit of coming in through the back garden door, taking what had once been the cook's staircase up to the second floor and straight to her bedroom, avoiding her grandmother's room completely. She was on the far end of the hallway, near the staircase, able to make a quick escape if necessary, far enough away that she was able to run the water in her tub and sob, and not arouse attention or concern, as she did that night.
She sat in the tub, letting the hot water sink into her muscles, providing a tiny bit of relief from the ever present gnawing sensation that had taken up residence within her. Her head tipped back against the tub, her eyes closed, her fingers closing on the little claret colored bird on its ivory background, the filigree of its ancient locket just as finely wrought as it had been the day it was made by his grandfather. He had left it behind, on the top of her dresser, beside his phone. She had not taken it off since.
She already knew what other people would tell her. That this wasn't good for her. That she ought not to push away her friends, that she needed to continue going to work every day for outside interaction, that she needed to find her way back to the land of the living again.
A small flutter came beneath her breast, as if she'd spoken the thought aloud, and Silva slipped a bit deeper beneath the steaming water.
She didn't need anyone's opinion on what was best for her, and she didn't need false friends. Everything she had once needed had been in the apartment above the black brick pub. Now that he was gone, she thought, rubbing the smooth base of the locket between her fingers, feeling that flutter, everything she needed was right here.
Lurielle
Everyone in her life had been put there for a reason, right down to the strangers in the coffee shop.
Everyone, that was of course, except for her ex.
Tev and her mother occupied the same corner in her journal exercise ofwhy were they sent to me.In a fucked up way, it helped to look at her relationship with her mother as something that had been by design, cosmically aligned, intentionally set to challenge her, to help her form firm personal boundaries and escape the emotional abuse with what was left of her self-esteem, which wasn’t much. Lurielle put her ex in the same column. Tev had not merely been a symptom of her inability to distinguish healthy relationships from bad ones, but had been placed in her path, she had decided, to teach her what a good mancouldlook like — which was the opposite of everything he was.
He had challenged her to leave, and she had risen to the occasion.
It was a notion she'd clung to. That everything she had endured in her life wasn't her fault, something she’d deserved. Merely that she had reacted to those obstacles placed before her, and was finally learning healthier coping mechanisms and thought strategies. Despina and her friends had been put in her life to help her on that journey, and Khash had put on her path to love, unreservedly.This is what we call personal growth.
She’d clung so hard to the idea that Tev had merely been an obstacle in her road to happiness, that the sight of him now nearly upended her.
It was the end of winter. Cambric Creek was a frozen wasteland, dry, bitterly cold, and unyielding. It was too cold to snow, something she appreciated when she was in Bridgeton, for the grey slush of winter normally made the city roads a nightmare to traverse on foot. It was the last big freeze before the weather broke, claimed the meteorologists, the warmth of spring right around the corner, putting the big day so close, she could almost smell the cool water of that little lake.
Lurielle couldn't help but feel as if she and Khash were ensconced in their own little cocoon of relative harmony. Hunkered down for winter, content with each other, with what they were planning, the future before them. She could pretend that she didn't still have nights when her crying pillow was put to good use, but Despina was right – her analytical and problem solving mind had needed something to focus on, and her journaling project took up every minute of her time that wasn't spent snuggled up on the sofa with him, watching old movies and bad reality TV.
Ris didn't talk much about whatever relationship issues she and Ainsley were having, but Lurielle could see it in her friends eyes, when they sat in the break room at work. Dynah would chatter obliviously, and Tula would pull up a chair, taking the empty space that Silva had vacated. Dynah and Tula would laughand gossip, Lurielle would eat her lunch as she listened, and watched as Ris fought a battle in her head, visible only through her troubled eyes.
Lurielle would pretend that she hadn’t feel slightly left out of Silva and Ris's increased friendship over the previous summer. Logically, she understood. Tate and Ainsley were friends, whereas Khash and Tate could barely tolerate each other's presence, and Khash and Ainsley weren't much better. She understood thewhybehind it, but that hadn’t changed the fact that she’d felt a bit left out.
She had been feeling a bit poorly for herself over it . . . until the events of that October.
Silva had gone through a bad breakup. That was the story that was being stuck to, although Lurielle didn't know if it was better or worse to add an additional layer of deceit on top of what was already a carnival of lies. She was the only one who knew anything who'dnotbeen present that day at Tate's little bistro in the resort hamlet, and she was certain that what she did know was only half the story, but half the story had been enough.
She no longer felt left out of the friendship between her two co-workers, and wouldn’t have minded being left out a bit further, left to lunch with Dynah.
Tate was gone, was not coming back, and his friends and coworkers were treating his absence as if he were dead, evidently at his own behest.
Her grandfather had frightened her with stories of fairies when she'd been just a young girl. Lurielle remembered very clearly, fishing with him and her brother. They would be sitting on the dock, their grandfather regaling them with stories of strangers who turned up at the pub off the pier, who made strange wagers and had too many fingers, the regulars with whom they spoke, who agreed to play their strange games, never heard from again.
There was one particular story of the fae her grandfather told, and it had frightened her so badly that she had wet the bed for an entire week after hearing it, too frightened to get up in the middle of the night.
He told them of a girl who'd lived nearby when he was growing up, years and years earlier. The Elvish children of their enclave would play in a clearing, he'd said, and they all knew to stay away from one particular tree. It was an easy thing to do, for the tree was both thorny and surrounded by a strange outcroppings of rocks, but that had not stopped one particular girl. She was an outsider, her grandfather had told them — preferred books to games, and would rather be alone than with the other children.
Lurielle would heat from her perch on the dock, feeling a terrible kinship with the girl in the story.
The girl would climb over the rocks, find a spot beneath the branches and read her book, hidden beneath the dense foliage and white flowers, hidden from the taunts of her Elvish schoolmates. And then one day, she simply didn't emerge.
We all watched her climb under those branches, each and every one of us. And then we went back to our game. No one bothered with her, not once. Unlike the rest of her grandfather’s stories, his voice had been solemn and far-off as he recounted that particular tale. Her brother had scoffed that it wasn't a good story because there was no ending, but Lurielle understood. The girl was gone and thatwasthe ending.Away with the fairies.
She didn't want to believe that the strange barkeep her friend had brought into all of their lives had vanished like the girl in the story. It was far easier to explain that he’d simply gone home, back across the sea, leaving his business and his girlfriend behind, easier to believe that by far . . . but Tate had always given off a strange, chaotic energy to her. Lurielle would certainly never say it aloud to Silva, but the thought of Tate being thereat her wedding, knowing what she knew now, positively terrified her.
