“I think you’re ready for the dance.”
We prepare for sleep in silence, but when it’s time to lie down, I force my feet to keep walking past her, toward the other side of the blanket. Her gaze burns into the back of my head, but I don’t let myself turn.
“It’s warm enough now that we can sleep apart.” The words taste like ash on my tongue.
She doesn’t respond. Silence stretches between us, until I think she’s fallen asleep.
“Is your brother a good man?” she whispers, the words carrying on the night air.
Bile churns in my gut, mingled with sharp guilt.
I should tell her what I did. Extinguish whatever flicker of feeling she has for me, however weak. Perhaps, it’ll be easier that way.
“No,” I manage to say.I killed your friends. “But neither am I.”
The next morning, I don’t look at her unless I have to. I don’t speak to her unless it’s necessary. I’m a spineless worm. I can’t meet her questioning gaze.
I’m a skiesdamned coward. It hurts to close myself off this way.
But what hurts more is that she doesn’t ask what’s wrong.
She knows. Shemustknow how I feel about her. And she must have decided it’s best to distance ourselves.
We manage this way, silent and sulking, for a few days before Mayah seems to have had enough.
“Are you going to ignore me the rest of the way?” she demands with a scowl.
A deep sigh is my response.
“Look, the other night. The dance. It—”
I brace myself for her to write it off, to say it meant nothing.
But what she says is worse.
“We can still be friends?” My shoulders tense. “After the wedding. We’ll be family.”
I don’t want to be her fucking friend.
Or her brother-in-law.
Bile burns the back of my throat. I need to confess. Tell her what I did—perhaps this foolish hope in my chest will wither away beneath the heat of her hatred.
She deserves to know the truth of what I did. What I am.
And she deserves to hear it from me. Faramir and my father know enough of that night—if she were to find out from them or piece together the truth on her own…
“I need to tell you something,” I find myself saying, unable to meet her gaze. “And you’ll hate me for it.”
“Bold of you to assume I don’t already hate you.” She smiles brightly, but it only fuels the flames of the self-loathing threatening to set me alight.
I steel myself. If she despises me, it’ll be for the best. Then, maybe my idiot heart will stop yearning for an impossible future with her.
“Your friends. Sura and Tumaas. I killed them.”
She blinks slowly, as if the words didn’t register.
Her lips part with surprise. Or with the urge to swear at me.
