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"Not like that," I said, pulling my hand away.
But she caught my wrist. "No, not like that. Our version. You don't treat me like a trinket, and I never want to be one. I still want all of you, Ela. The good parts and the bad. I don't want perfect. I want real, so I don't feel like I'll wake up from this dream."
And that was what pushed away the melancholy that hung in the back of my head. I hadn't hit depression this time, but that feeling of being dirty - or maybe sullied was more accurate - was always there after torturing people like that. Wraythe could hold it at bay, but Nari always found a way to make it vanish completely.
"I'll try," I assured her. "I just had to accept myself first. To know that I had control of this."
"You do," she said. "Ela, you've always had control."
"I didn't feel like it. I was terrified that I would treat you like that. That if I gave in to the desire to hold you down or push you at all, then I'd slip and end up... well, like with Faylie."
"I'd never let you," Wraythe told me.
"And you aren't always in the room with us," I reminded him. "Nari would let me. I know she would, and until I could trust myself..."
"Do you?" she asked.
I shrugged. "More than before. Not completely. I just don't want to ruin what we have. What all of us have. I don't want to be the thing that tears this apart."
Talin moved to sit beside her. "You can't, Ela. Don't you get that? We don't like you because you're perfect - "
"Youkeepsaying that!" I broke in.
"Because you need to hear it," he shot back. "Not just listen to the words passing through your brain, but stop and hear what I'm saying. We don't want perfect. Perfect is boring. Perfect makes the rest of us feel like failures. Perfect might be your armor, just like beauty is Nari's, strength is Wraythe's, and the Ranndor name is mine. That's fine. But when it comes to each other, we'd rather feel like you trust us enough to show us your flaws. Your fears, even."
I nodded at him, but my eyes were on Nari. "I'm trying."
"I know," she assured me. "And I love you more for it. We got this, Ela. No one steps out of Zeal's tears as an adept, right? This is just us learning together. I like to think it means that we won't grow apart."
