Argh!!
“I’m going to make more ice cream,” I say grimly.
“Eat some, too,” Zan advises. “I’ll make breakfast. We can go pick more berries on our way down the mountain.”
Itfeelslikeittakes an eternity.
Zan busies himself in the kitchen. Cooking, tidying. The “dragon in the kitchen” idiom has never seemed more laughable, because he looks like he belongs there.
How long has he been waiting—preparing—to have a home of his own, and never feeling like he could? His skills may double as how to help a sage, and maybe that’s how it started, but the little touches in how he arranges a space—that’s not practicality.
That’s the desire to have a home.
And until me, he wouldn’t—or maybe couldn’t.
Focusing on him is the only thing that makes the wait bearable.
I eat some of the ice cream I made yesterday. It’s amazing. I try to savor it.
I think I know why Zan said I should eat some, even now.
Good things can exist even when some things are wrong.
I have to hold onto that, or else what am I fighting for?
But the fact that good things can exist just makes me even angrier that I should have to fight—with myself most of all—to allow myself to appreciate them.
I eat a whole bowl of both my ice creams while Zan cooks.
Maybe believing that I deserve good things is something I can improve with practice, my kata—my meditation, my prayer—eating ice cream until I believe in good things no matter the circumstances.
And then I take what I’ve learned from this meditation and get to work.
I can at least keep creating happiness in ice cream form.
Zanvisiblyshutshimselfdown again before we go; more completely, this time. It’s hard for him to see me around other people with the mating instincts riding him. I don’t ask if that will abate or intensify if we do mate, because I don’t want to give him any more justification for delaying.
Iresentnot being able to give him the time to acclimate. For just being together.
So I keep a firm hand on my emotions, too, because I’m ready to lash out atanything.
And I’m very deliberately going to save this energy for whatever fucker caused what I’m feeling that’s drawn me out of Zan’s embrace.
We forego blackberry picking on the way down the mountain after all. I don’t want my mood to taint the joy of that memory.
I also want the ice cream that Zan helped me pack encased in blocks of ice to still be cold when we get there.
Nothing appears out of place as we make our way swiftly through Crystal Hollow, heading straight for Nomi’s house.
But when Zan knocks, there’s no answer.
We exchange a glance. Where could she have gone? If we ask around—maybe just with the intention of putting my ice cream in her house until the meeting is over—
No.
My patience snaps in a surge of anger.
Something is wrong, and I am not an ordinary person who can do nothing about it.
