by Gaia Octavia
The sun had almost fully risen, so as soon as the meat was finished cooking, we would need to get going. I made a mental note to stand downwind and to bathe as soon as we got somewhere near moving water. We only had another few hours to walk before we reached Brolah, and I knew that Emit was nervous. He always was before we arrived at a settlement, but especially this one.
Emit stayed quiet so I didn’t say anything before I went to collect some water from the runoff farther along the overhang before the meat finished cooking. We could eat while we walked. That way we wouldn’t have to make conversation.
I checked over my shoulder to be sure Emit couldn’t see me, and after filling the skins, grabbed a handful of wet moss and quickly scrubbed at my armpits. For once, I couldn’t wait until it was time for bed so I could close my eyes, hide under my blanket, and pretend that I would never have to come out from under it again.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
⸙
EMIT
We’d been walking for a few hours and Jade had yet to say anything to me other than the occasional, “watch out,” or, “this way.”
I couldn’t stop beating myself up about my behavior this morning and hadn’t forgotten how he’d caught me inhaling his sweater an hour or so later. Judging by the water stains under his arms when he’d returned from filling the waterskins, neither had Jade.
What a mess I’d made.
I needed to think of a way to get past the awkwardness that had crept in between us so that we could get back to being best friends the way we had been before. The way we’d always be. This new dynamic in our friendship wasn’t working for either of us and it needed to end right now. I swore to myself that I would never push Jade to stay in my bed again. And that I would never, ever, under any circumstances, look at Jade the way I had looked at him this morning.
Or think of him the way I had thought of him this morning.
Or long to touch him the way I had longed to touch him this morning.
Godsdamnit.
I quietly adjusted my waking cock and forced the thoughts from my mind. The last thing I needed was for him to turn around and catch me sporting a boner.
Gods, I’m such a creep.
A few minutes later, Jade came to a stop by the thickening edge of the forest. I watched as he referenced the placement of the sun and picked at some moss on a tree. As I waited, I noticed again how his shaggy, dark hair seemed to reflect the sunshine in such a way that it shone even brighter–framing his face in an otherworldly light.
His hair shone in the moonlight as well, but something about the way it caught the sun made me jealous of just how gorgeous it was. And the sad thing about it was that Jade had no idea of how beautiful he really was. Not one clue. If we’d grown up together in my camp, Jade would have had his pick of all the girls. Even Sheena would have had a hard time noticing me with him around.
“We should be there in a couple of hours,” he said as he began walking again.
I sighed as I followed him. In each of the many camps and settlements we’d come across along the way, this was the settlement that had kept coming up again and again when we questioned people. It’s not that I wasn’t excited, but to say I was anxious was a massive understatement. It’d taken us a year and a half to get to this moment, but I still wasn’t prepared for it.
Brolah was one of the largest settlements in the land and one of the few that was still taking on new camps. I knew this was where my family would have gone. Where they would still be. And while I couldn’t wait to get my arms around them, I still didn’t know how I was ever going to make it up to them after all that I had put them through.
⸙
The lacewings in my stomach turned to stones as we reached the far side of the settlement. I felt dizzy and sick to my stomach. My family had to be here. I knew they were here. Why hadn’t I found them? I had been so sure that they would be here, I hadn’t even prepared myself for the possibility that they might not be. I didn’t know what to do or what to think. All I knew was that for the past eighteen months, we’d stopped at all the smaller settlements and camps along the way and at each one, we’d been told that the largest settlement–this settlement–was the only one taking on new camps.
But they weren’t here.
I was somewhat aware of Jade following quietly behind me as I continued to walk around the settlement. I retraced my steps and made a second pass through the entire maze of camps, making sure to look at every single campsite I passed, knowing it was a fruitless effort.
What if…
No.
I refused to let my mind continue the thought. My family was alive. The raiders had found me away from the rest of my camp and I had no reason to believe that any of them had continued on to find them.
Unless…
Unless there’d been more than one party of raiders out in the woods that night.
No.
I don’t know how long I was frozen in place, fighting against rising panic, before I felt Jade’s hand softly touch my shoulder.
“It’s gonna be okay, Em,” he said softly.
His words snapped me out of my thoughts and I shrugged his hand off.
“It’s going to be okay? Gods, Jade, my family is dead! Nothing will ever be okay!” My face was on fire as heat spread from my belly. From my soul. Jade’s unending hope was the empty, romantic notion of a child. “I would think that if anyone understood that, it’d be you,” I spat.
Jade stepped back as if I’d struck him. I knew I was being cruel, but I couldn’t stop myself from pushing him away. I needed to be alone before I completely shattered from the panic and grief that were pressing in on me.
“Look, you promised to get me here and we’re here. I know I owe you a lot for everything you’ve done for me, but it’s time to live your life and leave me to mine.”
Jade made no move to leave, so I continued.
“Why are you still here anyway? Don’t you want to have a life of your own? Why do you even give a shit?”
I refused to look at him, knowing that the tears that had been pooling in his eyes at my earlier remark would surely be falling by now.
He didn’t answer me.
“You deserve happiness, Jade,” I offered, “and you’ll never find that with me.”
I turned to leave.
“Em, I–”
His words came out fast and ragged. He sounded upset. Almost panicked. I knew he hadn’t seen my reaction coming and had never expected the words I was hurling at him, but I couldn’t stop now. I just needed to be alone.
Even if it was forever.
“Don’t you get it?” I shouted, “I don’t want you!”
I heard his sharp intake of breath and knew that I had just severed any chance of coming back from this. I forced myself to ignore the way that thought made me feel hollow–aching to take the words back.
It was too late.
“Goodbye, Jade,” I said with finality to the emptiness in front of me.
I took off then, walking quickly toward the edge of the wood. I paid no attention to my surroundings; not caring if I walked into the waiting jaws of a giant predator or into the trap of a band of raiders. My life was no longer a concern of mine. All I wanted to do was outrun the pain that was crashing down on me. I quickened my pace until I was running.
I ran blindly, paying no attention to direction or to my body’s signals that it needed to rest. I wouldn’t have to face anything if I could just keep running.
From Jade.
From pain.
From panic.
From the truth.
My legs continued to pump as my mind finally settled into the numbness that only comes with overexertion. Still, I continued. I was slightly aware of the world darkening around me. The sun had given up for the day, even as I refused to. I kept running. My throat ached, and each breath felt like a fire set in my lungs, but on I went. Nothing was going to stop me from escaping the madness that was threatening to swallow me. Somewhere in t
he back of my mind, I wondered if this was how Jade felt all the time.
Jade.
I hadn’t even thanked him.
After all that he had done for me, I hadn’t even given him that. He had saved my life so many times. He had given me hope and encouragement, even when all seemed lost. Even when I realized my family wasn’t where I’ve been dreaming they would be for over a year. Yet I had thrown him away as soon as he was no longer of use to me. As if he meant nothing to me. Shame washed over me.
I would never get to thank him now.
There was no way I was going to find my way back to the settlement without a lot more time and even more luck. Even if I did make it back, by the time I did, Jade would be long gone. I hadn’t even grabbed my pack, so it looked like I’d be sleeping without a fire or a mat when my exhausted body finally quit for the night.
Suddenly, my foot caught on something hard and my body slammed to the ground. Probably a root, my brain commented, instead of ordering my hands to brace my fall. My stomach and face hit the dirt full force. As I lay there, stunned, everything I had been running from rushed up on me and I cried out in pain from the loss of my family more so than the pain from the fall.
I tried to focus on the physical pain, but my emotional state was undeniable. I sobbed into the dirt–my loud wails sounding like nothing I had ever heard before. My chest tightened as pain tore through me. My world was so dark.
Without my family, I was nothing.
Without Jade, I had nothing. And no one.
It was just as well. I didn’t deserve to know a person like Jade. Someone so kind, so understanding, so full of love. I should have let him go earlier instead of desperately hanging all my hopes and all that pressure on him. Then I’d gone and thrown him away as if he meant nothing to me.
I was such a shit.
I was still howling into the earth when I felt a tentative hand clasp my shoulder. The touch tore loose a guttural sob. I didn’t need to look up to know whose hand it was.
He had followed me.
After all that I had said to him, he hadn’t let me go. He must have shadowed me, running just as long as I had, probably while carrying all our supplies, and now he was here, comforting me. An open waterskin touched my lips and I eagerly swallowed as it was tipped into my mouth.
Jade was a miracle.
After I drank, my throat felt raw but it no longer felt like I’d swallowed a torch.
“What if they’re dead, Jade?” I sobbed, knowing the time for apologies would come later; when I could collect my thoughts and express how deeply sorry I was.
He said nothing.
I felt him shift his weight as he moved to cover my entire body. His chest pressed along my back as his legs cradled into the backs of mine, fitting perfectly. He laid his head at my nape. His soft, warm breaths stroking the back of my neck as he wrapped his arms around me. The pressure immediately soothed me, and his encircling arms provided a barrier against the bottomless grief that threatened to overtake me again.
I closed my eyes and allowed myself to get lost in his comforting hold. After an hour of lying together where I’d fallen, Jade still hadn’t moved from his protective position. I had stopped sobbing some time ago, but still hadn’t moved or spoken. Finally, Jade’s soft voice broke the silence.
“My mother,” he began, “I miss my family, but I miss my mother the most. The way she smelled, the sound of her voice, the feel of her soft hair. Those memories–they’re not gone, but they’ve all faded.”
Jade shifted his weight off me and laid directly by my side, rubbing his right hand against his thigh. It was something he’d always done–usually when he was upset. “But the way she felt when she used to hold me… I can still feel it now. It’s like she never stopped.”
“She hasn’t,” I told him, reaching to cover his worrying hand with mine and stilling its movement.
Jade looked at me then. I could see the pain in his eyes but the corner of his lips raised slightly on one side.
“She used to call me her little Gem.” He chuckled softly. “She said that I was as precious as any gemstone, and just as rare.”
He sighed before he continued.
“I miss that, Em. I miss having that person who loved me more than anything else in the world. Someone who never stopped loving me, never hurt me or wished that I was anything other than exactly who I was.”
His voice was filled with mourning and I wished I could do something or say something to take away his pain.
But I knew now that no one and nothing could.
“So I guess that’s partly why I want to help you find your family. Because you still have a chance to have that and I want nothing more than to see you find it again.”
Jade never ceased to astonish me. He’d just opened up to me with such raw honesty, even after everything I said to him. I was ashamed of my own inability to fathom the depths of his kindness, his purity.
“I’m sorry, Jade,” I said, “I don’t know why I said all those things to you. I didn’t mean any of it. I’d just held on so tightly to the hope that they would be there. When they weren’t…”
I paused a moment.
“All the fear and anger that I’d stuffed behind that hope came at me all at once and I took it out on you.”
I squeezed his hand.
“You didn’t deserve it. You never deserve it. I’m so sorry.”
“I get it, Em,” he said, “but it’s not over. We just have to keep heading north and checking each settlement along the way. I’ve traveled that way before,” he reminded me–though he didn’t remind me that it had been with the raiders.
“I know we can do this.”
Relief swelled in my chest as Jade’s words confirmed that he wasn’t going to walk away from me. From us. I didn’t know what I ever did to deserve him. In fact, I knew that I didn’t deserve a friend like him in my life. But I also knew that I was going to start trying like hell to.
“Thank you, Jade.” I waited for him to look at me. “For everything.”
He smiled his shy smile and then stood up, reaching his hand out for mine.
“C’mon, Em, let’s go find a place to camp for the night and set up. I’m starving.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
⸙
JADE
“Will you sing to me?”
It took me a moment to respond. The question startled me, and I was immediately worried that I knew where this conversation was headed.
“What?”
I busied myself in hopes that he’d leave me alone.
“That night I ate the berries, when I had that fever and I was scared,” he pushed, “you sang to me.”
I closed my eyes, cursing myself for believing that he wouldn’t remember.
“I thought I’d dreamt it, but I’ve heard you humming it when you didn’t think I could hear you.”
I never planned on singing to him that night. But his fever dreams had been fitful, and I’d been so scared that I would lose him–that I had failed him.
I took a breath.
“Em,” I pleaded, “I don’t know why I did that.”
It was a lie.
And it wasn’t an answer to his question, but I was desperately trying to think of a way out of it. I couldn’t go into the woods and leave him, not when he was this upset. And truthfully, I couldn’t say no to him either. I was just hoping my plea would make him change his mind.
That he wouldn’t ask me again.
“Please, Jade?” He whispered.
“I need it.”
I knew what he meant. There’d been so many nights my mother had sung it to me when I had needed it. When I was sick, when I was upset, when I just needed to hear her voice as I drifted off to sleep. But it was something that I had held deep within me for so many years. It was the one thing that was all mine. The one thing no one–not even the man–could ever take from me. I had repeated it over and over in my head every night, terrified that I would forget the words or the
melody. I knew it just as intimately as I knew my own body.
It was silly really, not wanting to share it. It was just a little song made up for me, but it was mine and it’d been all mine for more than nine long years. It felt like I would lose a part of myself if I shared it.
Then again, I already had shared it. With Emit. I’d sung it as I willed him to come back to me, and he had. Surely, this was something I could give him. Something I could give back to the boy who’d taught me so much. Who’d helped me grow so much already. I closed my eyes and began to sing, losing myself in the memory of the love I used to feel wash over me whenever my mother used to sing it.
“My love for you
Lies on feathered wings,
You will hear it whenever
The calliope sings.
“My heart beats for you,
Even after its death,
You will feel it within
The wind’s every breath.
“For no matter how far
Life takes you from me,
My darling Gem,
You will always be.”
I let the last note fade before I wiped at my cheeks. Sharing the song with Emit hadn’t felt like a loss. It’d felt right. It felt like I was giving him a piece of myself that I knew he would always keep safe.
“Thank you, Jade,” he said, wiping at his eyes, “it means a lot to me. Really.”
I sighed. Somehow, I’d felt freer the moment I’d finished singing than I’ve felt since I was captured all those years ago. I no longer had to bury that piece of myself to keep it safe and hidden. I was free to share it.
I was free to sing.
“It’s beautiful, you know,” he said quietly.
“Yeah,” I agreed, “my mother always made up beautiful little songs. She was amazing.”
“Your voice, I mean,” Emit said, holding my gaze when I looked at him in surprise, “it’s beautiful, Jade. Just as beautiful as the song.”
I laid down then, choosing to join Emit on his mat. But this time, I was the one who wrapped my arms around him and held him as he began to cry.
