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I dig into my bag, pulling out a pouch of green nuts. Snatching out a handful, I stuff them into my mouth.
“I’ll answer your question about the red tablets instead,” I say around a mouthful.
“Okay.” She sits up taller, giving me her undivided attention. I let the quiet steep a bit before speaking again.
“I have a thing about people touching me.” I clear my throat before popping more nuts into my mouth. “I don’t like people’s hands on my skin. Never have. The red tablets were made by Mythics, for people like me. People who are extremely sensitive to touch.”
She nods, as if she understands, but I have a feeling she doesn’t. Her brows are puckered, her eyes pleading for a clearer answer. I look past her at a thin tree with thorns on its branches.
“I’m not sure why I was born that way, but I was. When someone touches me, it’s not a normal sensation for me like it is for everyone else. It doesn’t bring me comfort, and it doesn’t soothe me. Instead, I’m hyperaware of the touch, and at first itjust made my skin crawl. But as I got older…well, anyone’s touch would hurt, and it made me angry.”
“Wow.” She blinks. “I wonder why that is.”
“Just does.” I’m not about to tell her anything more than that. There’s a deeper reason for my anger, and it has nothing to do with being touched. Besides, there’s no need for her to know so much. I put up my wall, making sure none of the thoughts slip out for her to hear.
She nods again, lowering her gaze. I chomp a few more nuts, side-eying her.
“That’s why you cover yourself up.”
“I suppose. It’s still annoying having people touch my clothes, but at least it’s not my skin.”
“That must suck.”
I say nothing to that.
“But you’ve touched me several times,” she says. “Once at that insane party in Vanora, and when we were escaping Beatrix’s. You carried me the whole way.”
“I had no choice.”
“Did it not hurt for you to hold me?”
I remain quiet, mulling it over. Truthfully, it didn’t hurt. It was almost instinct to carry her and get her to safety. I didn’t think twice about whether it would hurt me or not.
“I suppose it didn’t.”
“So…maybe there are exceptions.”
Yeah, with her, it seems.
“Maybe that’s why you’re so bitter,” she goes on. “You don’t let anyone embrace or hold you.Comfortyou.”
“I prefer it when people stay away from me.”
“Why do you want everyone away?” Her question catches me off guard, and the curiosity of it burns in her eyes. She truly wants an answer, but I have none to give. Well, none I want to voice out loud.
I stand up, collecting my bag. “Gotta take a piss. Once I’m back, we’ll move out.”
Ripple Hills
Forty-Three
WILLOW
I findit hard accepting what Caz has told me. Humans were made to touch and be touched. It’s what makes us, well, human.
And, sure, this is a different world, but that doesn’t make him any less mortal. He has flesh, bone, and a beating heart, and everything else that makes him man. He bleeds, just like I do, and he breathes, same as I. There really is no difference between us, and I’m curious how someone else’s touch can anger him.
I think back to when he mentioned his mother. He speaks about her in the past tense, as if she’s no longer here. What happened to her? Or better yet, what happened tohim? There’s a reason he’s so closed off and guarded, and a part of me is lured to that, desperately wanting answers.
