A door snapped shut behind me in the hallway. I flinched, but it was only my friends. Delmare, Kiara and Odette approached me, looking concerned.
“Something’s wrong,” Delmare said immediately. “I can see it on your face.”
“Everything’s falling to pieces,” I said bitterly. “And I just don’t have the stomach to face it anymore.”
“What do you mean?” Delmare asked.
“I used to be brave,” I spat. “I used to rule everything. Now look at me. I’m scared of every shadow that graces my doorstep, terrified to take one step outside and into the light.”
“But that’s a choice. You can be confident again!” Odette said.
“You don’t understand,” I said in frustration.
They didn’t get it. I used to be such a hardass about everything because skating had hammered it into me. You fall, you get back up again, no matter how much it hurts. Then you try again.
Yet Droga’s return had sucked that right out of me. I’d lost so much that I was worried to lose anything else. Everything felt like it was going away. And that fear of being abandoned and alone at the end of the world was more terrifying than anything I’d experienced. I’d sacrifice who I was to not feel that kind of agony again.
Perhaps that was the problem. I’d lost myself, and I didn’t know how to getmeback. I didn’t even know who I was anymore.
Delmare conjured a handful of sand. She slipped it into my palm and said, “If you clutch tightly onto something, and grasp it within your hand, you’ll end up losing it.”
She enclosed my fingers around the pile of sand, and grains dribbled out from within my fingers. “But if you merely hold it…”
She unfurled my fingers and made it so my hand cupped the sand gently. Not a grain slipped out.
My voice wobbled. “But how can Inothold on so tightly if I’m so scared to lose it?”
“By knowing that it won’t leave,” Delmare replied. “What you chase will run away, Emma. What you allow to exist freely will be drawn to you.”
A tear slipped out of my eye and ran down my cheek. “It hurts to care this much. I just wish I didn’t. All I am is a timid mess.”
Odette shook her head. “That’s no good. We need to bring Bitch Emma back!”
“Okay… how?” I asked weakly. The sand vanished out of my hand as I conjured it away. I could remember what I was like a long time ago, and that Emma felt like a totally different person compared to the spineless woman I’d become today. I’d say anything to anyone, do anything to anybody. I didn’t run from a fight, or hold back what was on my mind for fear of setting somebody off. I would’ve rather delivered a punch than turned tail and ran.
Nowadays, I looked in the mirror and was disgusted with my reflection. All I ever wanted to do was curl up on the couch underneath a blanket and hide. I’d spent days like that here at the estate; not doing anything, just lying in a ball and letting my tears seep onto the pillows.
Kalina and Kazim were bringing me out of that, because you couldn’t mope around all day when you had babies to take care of. But the terrible emotions still stayed. It was like I couldn’t get rid of them.
That wasn’t me. I wasn’t this depressed girl who couldn’t pull herself together most days. I wanted to beEmmaagain.
But maybe that Emma had died when Dolinska fell. That was the scariest thing of all to consider.
“What you need is a warm cup of tea,” Kiara offered. “Come on, I’ve brewed a new pot in the parlor room.”
Tea sounded comforting. I took a seat in the parlor room near the window, and sipped at the cup of hibiscus tea that was placed into my hands. The other girls settled into seats around the empty fireplace as I looked out the window, watching the sheep graze below.
“The estate is so beautiful in the spring,” Kiara said with a lovely sigh. “We should really make an effort to get outside more often.”
“It nearly reminds me of Arcanea University,” Delmare said. “There are so many halls and rooms here. It’s like being back at school again.”
“Kind of.” I loved my grandparents’ estate, but it couldn’t replace my true home. “Arcanea University was gorgeous. The blossoms should be blooming on the trees in the gardens right about now.”
“Arcanea University wasn’tallbeautiful,” Odette protested. “It had a few ugly buildings. Do you guys remember that one tower on campus that looked like a giant dick?”
“Do I ever.” I’d never had classes up there, but everyone on campus had used the infamous tower as a waypoint, since it was such a memorable building.
“I bet you don’t remember that tower as much as Odette,” Kiara teased, sipping her tea with a smirk on her lips.
