by T. R. Graves
Chapter 21
Muhammad Must Go to the Mountain
Carlie
I'm not sure what Surrogate Soldier Jayden St. Romaine was supposed to be doing, but he ended up spending the rest of the day in the kitchen with Rorie and me. It seemed Thorne had abandoned his infirmary duties that morning in order to help with breakfast but had to get back to treating the sick, because by the time he'd finished his shower, there were several people looking for him. His only option was to resume his doctoral duties and leave us to help Rorie with hers.
"I'll be in our tent if you need anything," he'd said a half dozen times before he decided I might actually be well enough to be left on my own.
It was as if he thought of me as a fragile being who needed his constant attention. My run-in with the snakes had Thorne treating me exactly the way I'd treated Tawney after I'd found out she was dying. Somehow, I needed him to know I was actually fine. That I wasn't broken. That I was going to make it.
That I'm going to throat punch him if he treats me like I'm anything less than his equal after today.
I was feeling better by the hour. There was no reason to tiptoe around me or pretend as though I had the same death sentence Tawney had. I could run five miles right now if I had to. Now that I was being honest with myself, Tawney hadn't been able to do that for quite some time.
Hindsight really is 20/20.
When I looked back on the last several months, I remembered more days where she slept than trained. I remembered more days where she lay reading rather than taking the long, leisurely walks she loved. Mostly, I remembered the clammy skin she'd blamed on the training that I now knew she wasn't doing.
Tawney's sick. Not me. I won't be treated like I am.
