AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Nicole
I swallow.
Hard.
He still looks just as good as he did before, all of those years ago. He’s still tall and lean, but with broad shoulders and muscular arms that seem to be perfectly designed to wrap around me when I’m scared. He towers over me. Even in his human form, it’s no secret that he’s not really a man. No. Not with those eyes. Not with the way he fills the room. It almost seems hot in here, suddenly.
Stuffy.
I catch my breath, but don’t say anything to him.I can’t find the words. While speaking has never seemed to be an issue for me, now it suddenly feels like an impossible goal. If I knew how to form words once upon a time, that skill has vanished from my list of abilities.
What would I say, anyway?
Judging by the way his eyes pierce mine, he knows exactly why I’m in Fablestone. He knows exactly who I am, what I’ve done. I’m not under the impression that he came to the bakery just to see me, either. No. He’s here because he wanted something to eat. Me being here is just an inconvenience.
“What...can I get for you?” I manage to squeak out. My voice sounds hoarse and sick. I sound terrible. Scared. I don’t really care that I sound this way. It’s how I feel, after all. I am afraid. There are so many things I’m afraid of that I don’t even know where to start.
So I’ll start with him.
I’ll start with feeling scared of the way he looks now and the way he looked back then. Back when we were in college. Back when we had big dreams of saving the world together. I’ll think of how scared I was when he rolled over and kissed me in bed, when he asked me to marry him. I’ll think of how afraid I was at the idea of that sort of commitment.
I’ll think of the look on his face when I said no.
Now, Lee doesn’t say anything. He just stares at me.
Hard.
Stone faced.
It’s as if he never knew me, never loved me.
Maybe he didn’t.
Maybe this is all just one big cosmic joke. Maybe it’s just nature’s way of being like, “Haha! Got you!” He was the first boy I ever kissed. I don’t think I ever told him that. He was the first one I ever did anything with.
And I just wasn’t ready.
Suddenly, my heart hurts just as bad as it did the day he walked away. It’s been years. It’s been ten damn years and I still can’t breathe when I think about Lee. I can’t think about him without having my heart crack. The little scars I thought were healed really aren’t so strong at all.
I swallow hard as tears well up in my eyes.
He doesn’t say anything.
He just stares at me.
My hands come together and I start wringing them.
Please say something, I silently beg. Anything. If he could just speak, then maybe this wouldn’t seem so terrible. Maybe I’d be able to forget how I betrayed the creatures of the forest. Maybe I’d be able to forget about the way I let them all down.
But he doesn’t speak.
Lee just stands there. The world seems to stop as I look at him, and finally, he turns his back on me. I have to physically stop myself for reaching for him, for trying to get him to come back. I have to stop myself from trying to get him to turn around and just look at me.
He didn’t really look at me.
He saw my eyes, but that was it.
And all I saw was anger in his.
