Page 102 of Queen of Nothing

It’s the fight.

It’s definitely the fight.

Long buried anger and resentment waking up inside of me.

Asta won the fight, then she won life—all while being accepted by the other witches.

I drop my gaze to the plate.

It’s a strange thing to have my mouth flood, but my stomach be as still as the air in a sauna.

Dray makes no move for his cutlery.

He drapes the napkin over his lap—and waits for me to start.

It’s a propriety rule he doesn’t need to follow when it’s just us two at the back of the plane.

But he does, and he waits.

I move slow.

It’s not petulance or resistance that slows me down. It’s the daze that’s settled over me.

Like I lost that fight with Asta all over again.

My grip tightens on the silver fork.

I mumble, “I guess I should say congratulations on her pregnancy.”

I shouldn’t be this surprised.

Every time I let myself imagine what was going on back home, I saw Asta and Dray together.

It wasn’t so much a question.

Dray arches a brow. “I will pass it on.”

I turn my cheek to him and look out the window.

Dray uses his cutlery to place strips of duck onto my plate. A polite nudge to start eating.

“It doesn’t feel real,” I confess. “It feels like I’m dreaming.”

“Do you dream of home?”

My mouth flattens into a tight line, as if to stop the truth from escaping my lips.

Dray presses, “There is nothing to be ashamed of.”

My gaze is lured back to him.

“You were raised with certain tastes and luxuries,” he says. “It isn’t unsurprising that you didn’t take to your little life when it came to it. The food, the clothes,” he adds, and looks me over, the polyester sweater that clings to my midsection, wider than the last time he saw me, “and empty connections, surrounded by those who will never understand you. It was more than always looking over your shoulder, wasn’t it? You missed it. You missed this.”

He gestures to the overall extravagance enveloping us—

And it’s so sickeningly true.

I eat my feelings.