Page 31 of Sparrow

But she has no reason to be thanking me like that.

I just did what any decent man would do.

“You don’t need to thank me. You would have done the same.”

She chuckles. “No, I don’t think I would have. I’m not brave like you.”

I turn to look at her and actually take her in, now. The fine, fair skin with the smattering of freckles. Hair that isn’t quite brown but also isn’t blond. Hazel eyes that glow golden in the rising sun. A beauty that I wonder if she can even see.

A beauty that isn’t just skin-deep.

“Yes you would. You’d never leave someone out there without a friend. You wouldn’t be able to stand it. Even if you didn’t know them, even if you knew you’d be better off leaving them there, you’d never do it, because you wouldn’t want them to suffer. Wouldn’t want them to be scared or uncertain, or to think they didn’t matter. You’d be desperate to save them. Take them home and feed them chicken noodle soup and give them every blanket you could find.”

Her eyes get larger with every word until I start to worry about her physical health.

“How do you know that?” she whispers.

Because I’ve been watching her, and I’ve seen how she takes care of people. I saw her making sure Penny had someone to talk to in the garage earlier, and that little Susie got her bike back. I’ve seen her considering Mars and his feelings as she starts to navigate the house. I’ve watched her watching the world around us, and I know the sort of heart that lies under that skin.

I’m only telling her the truth.

Or maybe I’m just talking about myself.

Right now, it’s hard to tell–and it doesn’t actually matter. Because this isn’t a conversation I want to have, and definitely not with a girl I’m going to send home as soon as Mars gives me the go ahead.

She’s nothing to me.

She has to stay that way.

And having conversations like this won’t make that any easier.

I stand up, turn, and walk into the house without answering, leaving my hot chocolate in the cup holder of that chair, sitting next to a girl who’s already seen far too much for my mental well-being.

Arden

This time when I wake in the bright, airy room I remember exactly where I am and what I’m doing here. And for the first time since I arrived, I don’t feel the memory of how it happened hanging over me. There’s no dark shadow hiding in the corner of the room, waiting to jump at me when I’m not looking. It’s still there, of course; I can’t get rid of the memory that easily. In fact, if I turn and look at it, all the feelings come rushing back; the fear and uncertainty, the horror of not knowing what’s going to happen to me. The loss of control and the unique frustration that came with knowing I was truly helpless.

The hope I had for those first weeks, when I thought someone from my family would come save me.

The despair when I realized it wasn’t going to happen, and the realization that I was a fool to think they would. Because I’ve never been worth that much to my father in the first place.

I take it all in my hands and shove it back into the corner where it was living, then turn back to the world of light and air and laughter. Today is a new day, and I know exactly what I want to do.

I need clothes. And I want to see the town around me in its natural setting, rather than waiting for it to come to me. No, I don’t mean to stay. I have to find a way onto the train and get home again. But I need clothes to wear until I can make that happen.

And perhaps something to read on the train.

And though I don’t want to admit it to myself–don’t even want to look at it too closely–there’s a part of me that wants to go into town and imagine, just for a moment, what it would be like to become a part of it.

Half an hour later I’ve had a shower and moisturized my face, then chosen another random set of clothing out of Mars’ magical closet–this time a pair of cutoff jean shorts and a tank top–and made my way down the stairs. I don’t know where the clothes in that closet came from, but I’m trying not to think about how they got here.

Or who they might have belonged to before Mars offered them to me.

I put that thought in the same corner as the fear and let it rot there as I head for the kitchen. The men have already come through and left for the garage, I assume, and the kitchen is empty but for the remains of someone’s coffee on the counter.

I look at it and smile, remembering a mug with an entirely different drink in it and the view of the rising sun from the porch. Then I remember Orion walking away from me without so much as a thank you. I’d gone out there expecting nothing, which was all he’d given me up to that point, and got instead a warm and funny man who picked up on my jokes and handed them back.

A man who had accepted my gift of hot chocolate and given me the gift of somehow seeing who I actually am.