She burst through the front door into the peaceful morning that awaited our riot.
“Wasting your time?” I screeched.
Dew hung heavy on the ground, and birds chirped happily in the trees. The perpetually gray fog wasn’t present this morning. I interrupted it all with animalistic roars.
To my horror, Angus and Murt were at the garden gate. Their arms were full of more gifts from the town. But at the sight of us, they calmly laid their packages down and backed away silently before hightailing it down the road.
“See what you did?” I screamed. Embarrassment and brash anger mixed together until my body boiled with emotion.
“Good for them to know what they’ve gotten themselves into with you.” She shifted my body, digging her shoulder right into my stomach. I jerked and clawed, but she paid no mind to the gremlin attacking her.
“I hate you, Ihateyou, I mean it!” I raged on.
“Join the club, princess. I’ve killed people before. Do you think I’m going to care whether a gardener who can’t even grow a single thing likes me or not?” she said right back, the timbre of her voice matching mine.
What the hells was going on? Hesper and I had bickered, but she’d never been like this. She was distant andunkindin a way I’d never experienced before.
Fine then; it was a fight she wanted? A fight she would have.
“Maybe if I weren’t stuck around a washed-up soldier day in and day out, I might be able to grow something,” I said, goading her. The words were harsh and pointed.
“Or maybe if you stopped working for two minutes and looked at the world around you instead of focusing on your Goddess-damned failures, then you wouldn’t be one,” she shouted. “But no, you refuse to let yourself live. At all.”
She set me down then, hard. I tried to run, but she grabbed my hand, holding me firmly in front of her. I struggled against her, but it was no use.
“And what do you know about it? You don’t know me; you don’t know my life. Just because we fucked doesn’t mean you get to tell me about myself.” What had happened? We hadn’t spoken for days; how could I have done something so dire as to result in her turning on me so viciously?
“We didn’t fuck,” she said with deathly calm.
“Excuse me? Were you not there in the wagon?”
“We didn’t fuck, Clara. I. Fucked. You. And then you went to sleep.”
Killing her might be my only option. Yes, this womanwould meet her end right here, right now. Proper brawl be damned. This was war.
“Maybe I went to sleep because I was bored,” I replied with that same calmness, even though my insides were ashes blowing in the wind.
“Yes, you were positivelydrippingwith boredom.”
“You didn’t seem to mind when you drank my boredom from me with moans,” I said through gritted teeth, getting as close to her as I dared.
Hesper let out an incredulous laugh.
“I hadn’t fucked in a while. I wanted a good time before I returned to Eldrene’s Train.”
My heart bucked in my chest—the carefully constructed walls I’d built these last few days burned up in an instant. All that was left was the pulpy, beating thing I’d fought so hard to protect.
She tore it all down. Over and over again.
“So it’s true then—” My voice was breaking, but I didn’t dare look away from her. “I was never anything more than just a good memory.”
“Who said it was good?”
“I don’t understand.” Hot, angry tears sprung up, my heart burning brightly in my chest. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t Hesper. “Why are you acting like this? What have I done?”
“Look around, princess.” I did, at the empty garden beds, at the cottage that awaited life. “You’ve. Done. Nothing.”
Nothing?
