A flicker of surprise moves through her gaze, catching her off guard, but Naia shakes her head stubbornly. “You don’t get it.”
“Then make me get it.”
“I can’t,” she says, frustration bleeding through. “Because you’ve never been in my position. Because I don’t run.”
The words land exactly where she intends them to, and something in me staggers. My voice drops as I ask, “You think I ran?”
“I know you did. You ran from Wraith Peak, you ran from your responsibilities, you ran from—” she cuts herself off, but it’s too late. She has already gone too far to take it back now.
“From what?” I press, feeling beyond tense now. “Say it.”
Naia hesitates as she looks up at me, but she pulls in a breath and lifts her chin. The accusation burns as she murmurs, “From everything, including me.”
My stomach drops at the sound of it coming from her as I focus on that last part. Her. She thinks I wanted to leave her. The notion of her even confusing that makes the anger claw even harder at my chest.
I step closer, closing the distance between us. “That’s not what happened.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No.”
“Then what?” she demands, eyes so full of disdain that I almost don’t recognize her now. “What do you call it when someone leaves everything behind without looking back?”
“I call it surviving, and choosing something better.”
Her expression falters just long enough for me to see it, but the deeply rooted pain gleams through.
“And what makes you think I don’t deserve that same choice?”
“You do,” I say immediately. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
“Then stop trying to take it away from me!” she snaps.
The words echo in the space between us, and somehow, that’s the breaking point.
Because I really don’t understand. I don’t get how she can stand here, knowing everything she knows now, and still choose to go back. To still choose them, and choose a place that’s already failed her. Even if she finds her way back, they’ll never see her as anything more than a tool to be wielded.
“You’re unbelievable,” I mutter as I look her over, not knowing how much of this I still have left in me.
“And you’re insufferable,” she fires back.
When neither of us says anything, I realize we’re too close now. With barely a breath between us, I can see every shift in her expression, every flicker of anger, and every trace of something deeper buried underneath it. I see the real her trying so hard to get out.
“You’d rather go back there than take a chance on something different,” I say, not believing how she can grip this idea so tightly without seeing the errors in it.
“You’d rather run than fight for something that matters.”
“And what exactly matters to you?” I demand.
“Proving I belong.”
“You already belong.”
“Not yet.”
It hits something in me I wasn’t expecting…something too raw that I don’t have a name for yet.
This whole time, Naia has been describing herself as unworthy of basic decency and care from the people who have been around her since the day she was born. When they look down at her, she assumes that means she needs to claw her way up to their level, rather than searching for another way and for other people who will genuinely care for her.
