The morning is cool and serene, everything limned in golden light. Touches of dew dot leaves and grass, the sun still stretching itself into the sky. The air is fresh with scents I cannot adequately describe; it’s an amalgam of early morning fragrances, the familiar smell of the world shuddering awake. That I notice these things at all is unusual; it is clear, even to me, that my mood is greatly improved.
Ella is holding my hand.
She’s been buoyant this morning. She got dressed even more quickly than I did, tugging me out the door with an enthusiasm that almost made me laugh.
Winston, who we discover waiting for us just outside the medical tent, possesses a range of emotions diametrically opposed. He says nothing when Ella and I approach, first taking in the two of us, then glancing at his watch.
“Hey, Winston,” Ella says, still beaming. “What are you doing here?”
“Who, me?” He points at himself, feigning shock. “Oh, nothing. Just waiting out here for this jackass”—he shoots me a dark look—“for over an hour.”
“What? Why?” Ella frowns. “And don’t call him a jackass.”
I process this exchange with some confusion. I’d notrealized until just that moment how much I’d been hoping Winston’s appearance at my door had something to do with Ella.
I see now that it does not.
“Winston came to our room this morning,” I explain to her. “He told me he had... a surprise for me.”
Ella’s frown deepens. “A surprise?”
“An hour ago,” Winston adds angrily.
“Yes,” I say, meeting his eyes. “An hour ago.”
He visibly clenches his jaw. “You really are the worst, you know that? I mean, everyone is always telling me that you’re the worst—not that I’ve ever doubted it—but wow, this morning has just proven to me how completely self-absorbed you are. I can’t believe I even offered to come get—”
“Winston.” Ella’s voice is quiet, carefully controlled, but her anger is loud. I turn to look at her, not surprised, exactly, but—
Yes, surprised.
I’m still unfamiliar with this dynamic. I’m still not used to someone taking my side.
“Look,” she says. “Warner might be too nice to say anything when you talk to him like that—”
Winston sounds for a moment like he’s choking.
“—but I’m not. So don’t. Not only because it’s awful, but because you’re wrong.”
Winston is still staring at Ella, dumbfounded. “I’m sorry— You think he’stoo niceto say anything? You think the reason Warner gets all quiet and gives people deathstares is because he’stoo nice? To say anything?” Winston glances at me. “Him?”
I am smiling.
Ella is indignant, Winston is furious, and I am smiling. Very nearly laughing.
“Yes,” Ella says, refusing to back down. “You guys are too comfortable bullying him.”
Winston looks around himself a moment, for all the world as if he’s entered some alternate universe. He opens his mouth to say something, looks at me, looks away, and then crosses his arms.
“You heard what he was like, right?” he finally says to Ella. “When you were gone? You heard all the stories about how h—”
“Yes,” she says, her voice darker now. “I heard exactly what happened.”
“And? So you know about all the people he murdered and how horrible he was to everyone and how he made a ton of people here cry and how Nouria nearly shot him for it—and you thinkweare the ones bullyinghim? That’s what you think is happening here?”
“Clearly.”
“And you,” Winston says, turning to face me, his eyes narrowing with barely suppressed anger. “You agree with this assessment of your character?”
