by T. R. Graves
Chapter 22
Vanilla Cake
Carlie
Thorne saw in my eyes that I was pulling away from him and fought against the distance I was making between us by squeezing my hand tighter before finally relinquishing it. I spun toward the screen, poked my head around it, and sang, "We're done here. I'm going to slip my clothes back on, and I'll be out."
Thorne popped around me. "Yeah. We're done."
The way he said it was anything but light and airy. On purpose, he made it sound like there was more going on than there was.
"I'll be back," he muttered as he headed toward the door of the tent.
I stared at his back and then the door, trying to understand what I'd done wrong and why he couldn't accept me as a friend, why things had to be so complicated with him.
Our parents did a disservice to both of us.
Jayden interrupted my thoughts. "That gown can be used as pajamas. Why do you need to change, Carlie?"
Self-conscious, I glanced down. "It's too thin, and it's kind of itchy. I'd rather have my clothes."
"Well, hurry up. I'm ready to get some rest," he said, walking over to my cot and, as promised, spreading his sleeping bag out next to where I'd be sleeping.
For no reason in particular, I took my time changing from the gown and into my supply tent-issued clothes. After I'd finished, I came around the screen only to find Jayden staring open-mouthed and flushed toward the screen behind which I'd just been changing.
It took me less than a second to put two and two together. "Were you watching me, Jayden?"
Jayden's face burned a brighter red. "I-I didn't mean to. I was getting ready for bed when your silhouette caught my eye. Before I knew it, I was watching you get dressed. Your shadow getting dressed," he corrected. "I shouldn't have. I'm sorry."
I had to giggle at my Surrogate. Only he, a man who was barely twenty, would be blushing and apologizing for doing something that equated to nothing more than him seeing a silhouette getting dressed.
"What's so funny?"
I shook my head. "You. You do know you weren't really watching me get dressed, and I'm not offended, right?"
He tugged me toward him, "If you knew what I was thinking while I watched you… how hard it was for me not to step around that screen and watch you get dressed for real, you'd be a little less giggly and a lot more offended."
"It's a good thing you stayed on this side. If you'd have come around there with me—which by the way, I'm not sure I'd have minded—you'd have had your fantasy destroyed. I'm covered in bites that will leave very real and very permanent scars. I'm not sure I'm ever going to go out in anything that doesn't completely cover my arms and legs," I admitted, trying to sound like my disfigurement wouldn't bother me. The way someone real brave would.
Jayden wasn't fooled. He intertwined our fingers and kissed the back of my hand. "Of course you will, and you'll still be the most beautiful woman in the world."
Before this week, Jayden had never really been anything but sarcastic to me. I was still getting used to the man before me, whose kindness made my stomach flutter and my heart burn.
"True or not, thanks. It means a lot coming from you."
"I'm the only person those kinds of things better be coming from." Jayden snarled while looking toward the door like he dared Thorne to show his face in his infirmary.
"Don't worry about that. There are few men who will want the damaged and scarred woman standing before you today. I mean, the entire Aspect Society is built on perfection. I've never tried to claim that before. Now, I couldn't if I wanted to."
"It's a flawed way of thinking, and you know it. Look at Rorie. She's no less of a person and she deserves no less than anyone else, but if it weren't for Thorne, she'd be in a home for genetic mutations."
"I know," I said, shrugging my shoulders. "It is what it is. People can accept me or not. I bet you anything Tawney would trade my scars for her disease if I asked. Right now, she's more important to me. I haven't heard from her or Gran. Tomorrow, we need to see if we can get word on them."
"We will. I promise. Now let's get some rest," Jayden said, pulling me toward my cot.
A few minutes later, I was tucked under the blanket and Jayden was lying as close to my cot as he could get. Surprising me thoroughly, my Surrogate Soldier turned toward me and hooked his pinky with mine.
Joined together, he and I fell asleep minutes later.
