Page 93 of Yearning Difficulties

We hadn’t done anything wrong. He wasn’t hers yet.

But I knew this had to be the end of it.

Claire’s smile faded as she read the tension in the room. ‘Everything all right?’

‘Yeah,’ I said, wiping the last of the wetness from my face. ‘Halloween is . . . complicated. Had a slight wobble. All good now. He’s all yours.’

Killian made a rough noise of disbelief. ‘Zella . . .’

He walked stiffly from the bed to the door, gently moving by Claire and Cherry without any fanfare. He stopped and looked back at me.

‘Cherry,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Make sure she’s okay. She’s been through a shitshow.’

Claire bit her lip as she watched him leave. She threw me a curious glance, one with only a touch of betrayal. Then scampered after him.

I eyed Cherry in her brown slip. ‘Can you tell me what you’re dressed as now?’

She grinned at me. ‘Killian said we all had to do The Wizard of Oz to make you happy.’

‘You’re wearing a brown satin slip and carrying fruit. Who is that meant to be exactly?’

She skipped into the room. ‘I’m one of the weird sentient trees that throw apples at Dorothy and the Scarecrow.’

I gaped at her.

And then, despite all of the heartache, old and new, I threw my head back and I laughed until I couldn’t breathe.

Thirty-Two

Duel

Today’s Track: ‘Sunday’ by Stephen Sondheim and Eleri Ward

It was our last weekend of shows at the Medieval Faire.

I met up with Cherry an hour before Saturday’s show and we bought some hot dogs and sat on the wooden bleachers.

‘So,’ I said to her while we ate. ‘I’m sorry for stealing your Halloween thunder.’

‘That’s okay,’ she said, her voice serene and sincere. ‘You can’t predict an autistic meltdown.’

I almost choked on my bite of sausage, fixing her with a look of disapproval.

She shrugged. ‘You can glare all you want. That’s what it was.’

‘You’re a doctor now?’

‘No,’ she said, suddenly more serious than I’d ever seen her. ‘I’m a fucking Pegasus that knows when it’s looking at another fucking Pegasus, which is going to kill itself pretending to be a horse.’

Silence. I had nothing to say to that.

‘Reflect on it,’ she added, a little more calmly. ‘Have some introspection. Do your research. But don’t sit there and act like I don’t know what I’m talking about.’

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Sorry.’

She tossed her long strawberry blonde hair over her shoulder and sniffed. Gave me an appraising look. ‘I know why you’re nervous to accept it, you know. To accept that you and me are the same.’

I blinked at her. ‘You do?’