Page 3 of A Sweet Destruction

Oh, I wasn’t sure I could handle this. My cheeks were burning with embarrassment. I’d never really been a part of any school, but I imagined this is what it felt like when the popular kids played a prank on the quiet one in front of a packed auditorium.

I kept my eyes on the floor, even as I felt someone’s attention burning into the top of my head, as Peter continued, “There is a chance it repressed the Bond on your end, if it appeared at all.”

“Alright.” Ford nodded to himself once. “I believe those odds are rather high.”

Ford said it so casually, like this wasn’t going to blow up my life, it took me a second to understand what he’d said.

When I did, my eyes shot up from the floor, snagging on his immediately. “What?”

“This is a discussion for later,” he hedged.

Panic seized my throat at the thought of being alone with him again. “No. Right now. You just told me you never felt the Bond.”

Ford’s eyes went hard, hiding whatever momentary softness I’d seen there, like watching a shutter fall right over a window. “Right before you rescued me, I had a…well, a premonition—I think—that you would. I could almost see it before it happened. Soren has described the Bond as providing moments of knowing.”

In all of that, the part I wanted to latch onto was that Ford could only talk about the Bond through what other people shared. Meanwhile, that crochety old bitch was more familiar to me than my own reflection.

“But you haven’t felt it since?”

Ford cocked his head to the side, speaking carefully, “And we now have an answer for why that is.”

“Oh, fuck you.” I shot up to stand, getting closer to him than I wanted to and moving away with such forceful redirection I had to stumble back a few steps to catch myself. “You don’t get to act all righteous about this.”

“Well, you should have fucking talked to me,” Ford shot back, his body visibly growing more and more rigid.

“I’m talking to you now.”

“Don’t be smart. You clearly haven’t said fuck all for nearly a decade.”

“You really do not want to rehash this, trust me.”

“Actually, that’s exactly what I want to—”

“Enough you two,” Peter cut in. Unsuccessfully.

“Hate to break it to you, Ford, but sometimes we don’t get what we want in life.”

“Esme,” Ford said, in warning.

“Esme,” Peter said, cautiously.

I didn’t know which of them I listened to, but I managed to cut myself off from exposing more.

“You two need to figure this out,” Peter snapped, interrupting our squabble. “We have shit to do.”

Oh, did we ever. Our camp had just burned down and it seemed like Muli was planning to wipe the floor with us.

Okay, right. I could be amicable. I managed to do it for a long, long time.

“Ford—” I began.

“Let me—” He cut me off, surely wanting to have the first word.

“No,” I said, the word as forceful as I could make it. “Let me be clear. We’re past secrets. I’m going to be brutally, wholeheartedly honest with you from now on. And I’m starting now by telling you I have every intention of doing the bare minimum to satisfy the Bond and nothing more. I lost all interest in cultivating feelings for you beyond what the Bond makes me years ago.”

“Five, it seems,” Ford shot back with a bitter laugh.

“Five years happier.”