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I assessed my options, which included sitting directly on the damp rock, sitting on the equally damp ground, or hurling myself from the mouth of the cave into the sea below. Luckily the rock was wide enough to give us some separation, and I lowered myself to face him, though the third option was tempting. He passed the bread my way, but I put my hand up, shaking my head. “You don’t like bread?” he asked, his mouth full.
I had to keep myself from telling him I fucking loved bread. I could eat it for every meal for the rest of my life. But even though I was able to put food on the table, I’d still had a hard time eating for the past few months. “Not hungry,” I murmured. The reality of what I was doing, where I was, who I was with sunk into my brain, and I shifted nervously. He could kill me easily if he wanted to. Push me from the cliffs, take the blade from his hip and shove it through my heart, kill me with his bare hands. What the fuck was I doing here?
He swallowed hard, looking at me with his eyebrows raised. “Are you okay?” There was that question again, that question he had asked me on the dirty streets of Inkwell. I hadn’t realized how weak the floodgates in my eyes were, buckling under the weight of his question almost immediately. Tears flooded my vision and I turned my head away, but it was too late. He had seen them fall, watched my face contort with pain for a split second.
He sat quietly as I fought the tears, trying to keep my sobs silent. But as I fought my own mind tooth and nail for control, I knew the truth was looming, lumbering closer, no matter how long I avoided it.
I was not okay. I had watched my sister die in front of me just last year. My father had been found dead in the harbor, presumably falling from the cliffs due to his tremors. The absence of his cloak turned that theory on its head and I was spinning along with it. We didn’t have enough to eat. My mother was a walking void of despair. She couldn’t take care of herself. I slept in the same bed I shared with Larka, waking to Ma’s screams every night.
I wasnotokay.
I let the sobs overtake me, my heart fracturing into shards that stuck into my ribs. My body shook so hard that I swore the floor of the cave moved. My wails echoed in the dark as I threw my head back in agony. “No!” I screamed, saliva thick on my tongue. “No, no, no!” I beat my fists on the rock beside me, the skin breaking after the first few strikes. Blood began to pour down my wrist. “They’re gone!” I screamed, over and over, my throat raw, blood splattering on my face with every strike of my fist, just like it had when I beat my father’s chest. I rose, looking for something,anythingto destroy, anything to represent a tangible piece of this pain, this agony. I wanted to tear my heart out and throw it in the harbor, let the beasts of the sea rip it to shreds. I didn’t want to feel anything anymore.
Arms around me. Warmth behind me. A chin resting on the top of my head. And calm. I was calm. The storm inside of me settled, the violence quelled. The screams that had formed in my throat dissolved in the heat that radiated into my back. My breathing evened. I had never felt more…calm. Protected. I knew I should have wanted to wrench myself from his grip, but I just…couldn’t.
Calomyr turned me to face him, his face plastered with concern as those liquid oceanic eyes looked into mine. “You won’t be okay for a while. But you will be okay again.”
“Why do I believe you?” I murmured. A peculiar feeling set in, because for some reason,I did.I believed that he hadn’t hurt my father. I trusted him with the knowledge he couldn’t give me. Why?
“Why shouldn’t you?” he said quietly. I inhaled deeply, grounding myself. “Sit,” he said, motioning downward as he lowered himself to the rock. “Tell me about them.”
