I’m grateful to be staring into the basin of the tub so that Max doesn’t see my look of disbelief. Max, with her sharp tongue and iron exterior, doesn’t seem to be the type concerned with romance. Then again, I remember the way her fingers curled into Shaw when we returned. The worry and concern she showed when leaving him in the Nemoran wood. Maybe there is more to her hatred of me than I realized.
“Max,” I venture timidly as she pulls me to a sitting position and wraps an old tunic around my wet hair, tying it in a neat knot at my temple. She turns and takes a sip from a chipped mug on her nightstand. “Are you and Shaw Bound?”
Max chokes, barely keeping hold of the mug as coffee splashes down her arm. “Dammit,” she mutters, setting the cup down and beginning to mop up the spill.
“Is that why you don’t like me? Because you’re Bound? I never meant to come between you. Shaw and I aren’t—"
I want to say ‘anything’.We aren’t anything.But the words stick in my throat.
“We just have an arrangement,” I finish weakly. “I’m already Bound to someone else—"
“Oh my gods,” Max shouts, throwing up her arms. “Stop sayingBound.”
I press my lips together. They call it something different here, but I don’t know the words. I meet Max’s eyes in the mirror. She knows what I mean.
“If you’re asking if Shaw and I are in a relationship, the answer is no,” she replies, frowning, “And I’m a feminist. I object to the notion that my hatred for you has anything to do with some sort of societal competition over aman.”
“But…you love him, don’t you? Isn’t that what that means here?”
Max stares at me, her face a mixture of incredulity and pity. Somehow, this is worse than straight dislike. “That word has a lot of meanings here,” she says gently. It’s the nicest I’ve heard her speak. “I do love Shaw, but not in aromanticway. That’s the word you’re looking for.”
She sets the comb on the nightstand and sighs, settling herself on the bed. She jerks her head, a clear indication I’m to join her. Hesitantly, I sink into the plush mattress, feeling as though I’m positioning myself next to a viper poised to strike.
“Shaw’s my best friend in the entire world. We’ve been through a lot together.”
Like escaping Shaw’s father. I remember what Shaw told me by the pond. Max is the one who stitched his wound and cared for his infection. Shaw may have saved her life, but she saved his as well. Those soul-deep bargains are not something that can be easily untangled.
“He knows me better than anyone in the world, aside from Cal. I would do anything for him.That’swhy I don’t like you.”
I furrow my brow. “You don’t like me because Shaw’s your…friend?”
Max shakes her head and flicks her eyes to the ceiling, as if I’m a great test of patience. “I don’t like you because I don’t trust you. And I don’t like you because you being here puts Shaw in danger and he puts himself in enough danger as it is. He doesn’t need a pretty little Similian excuse to be more reckless with his life than he already is and that’s exactly what you’re going to be.”
Max purses her lips and her wide brown eyes turn glassy. “You don’t know Shaw like I do, so you don’t understand that strong, confident Shaw is just a mask. He has no concern for his own safety because he doesn’t think he’s worth being concerned about. He acts how he thinks he should.”
I don’t know Shaw like Max does, but her words ring true. I didn’t imagine the look of relief on his face or the way he dropped his arms when Shivhai pressed his sword to his throat as if he were welcoming his own demise.
“How is that?”
“Broken,” Max answers, anguish washing over her features. “Like he’s worthless. If it comes to your life or his, he will choose yours, no questions asked. And it isn’t because of heroics or love, it’s because he doesn’t think he deserves to keep living. Whatever is really going on with Denver’s abduction, you being here makes it even more dangerous. It just gives him another excuse to be a martyr.”
Max’s eyes are pleading; pleading for me to protect Shaw when he won’t protect himself. She is vulnerable and I can feel the fear in her heart as if it’s my own. If Shaw dies, Max’s world will no longer make sense, the same if Easton leaves me. I want to tell her I will leave Shaw be and not shake her world, but I can no more untangle myself than Shaw can. Too many lives are now woven together. My father’s, my brother’s, mine, Shaw’s.
So instead, I say, “He is not broken. I don’t care what’s been done to his soul, Shaw is stronger for living through what he has.”
Max’s eyes light with begrudging approval. We sit in silence for a few moments, but the tension that lined the air between us has eased.
“Max?”
“What?”
“What’s a feminist?”
Max laughs. She has a beautiful smile. “I have a lot to teach you.”
* * *
“Well, you don’t look terrible,” Max announces hours later, as we both stare at my reflection in the mirror. She’s painted my lips a soft pink and darkened my lashes. Somehow, she managed to transform my unruly mess of hair into soft ringlets, some gathered at the nape of my neck and some falling softly to frame my face.
