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CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
REN
* * * * * *
2013
DELLA HAD BEEN out of sorts for the past few days.
I tried to ignore it and give her space. I trusted that if it was important, she’d tell me, and if it wasn’t, then I didn’t want to pry.
However, the day after she got back from her ride with Cassie, she was standoffish and strange. She refused to eat di
I tried not to be hurt by her behaviour, but I lay awake most of the night missing my best friend and wondering how the hell I could fix what I’d most assuredly broken because her mood must be my fault.
Why else did she hate me?
By the time the next afternoon rolled around, I finished early, had a shower so I didn’t smell of sweat and earth, and used the Wilson’s barbecue to make Della’s favourite: honey covered yams with brown sugar and soy sauce roasted chicken. I even threw on a few foil-wrapped bananas with maple syrup, indulging in her sweet tooth on all three elements of the meal.
When she returned from school, she gave me a weird smile, opened her mouth as if to say something, then darted into our bedroom.
She returned a little while later with blonde hair dark and damp down her back from a shower, and a turquoise summer dress with a heavy knit cream jumper to ward off the spring evening chill.
I cleared my throat. “I made us di
The weirdness in her faded when she pulled up the barbecue lid and spied the deliciousness underneath. “Wow, everything I love.” Her eyes gleamed with what suspiciously looked like tears before she blinked them away and beamed just like normal. “Thanks so much. You’re the best.”
The Della I knew and loved was still hiding, but for now, I’d settle for the reserved little woman smiling at me. I couldn’t stop my arms from grabbing her in a bone-crushing hug.
I held her so damn hard, wanting to delete the strangeness between us, wishing I could ask what she hid from me.
There were too many unsaid things these days and it made me nervous, as if I’d already lost her when she was still in my arms.
She returned my embrace but not as fierce as she usually would, and when I let her go, she sprang away quickly, when normally, she’d linger. We always lingered around each other. We liked each other’s company. I liked to know she was in reaching distance if she needed help. And she liked to snuggle up and make me laugh.
Where had that ease gone?
Why did her smiles make my heart thud in familiarity and foreig
It seemed she no longer needed that closeness, and I did my best to ignore the pain as we sat down on the outdoor picnic set at the bottom of the garden to enjoy our meal.
With birds roosting in trees, Della regaled me of tales about school and teachers and how she was excited to start high school because she wanted to learn the hard stuff and was done with primary.
I nodded and gri
She’d often used the ribbon as a bracelet or even tied it around her ankle once, but this was the first time she’d used it as a necklace, and I couldn’t take my eyes off the way it showed off her stark collarbones.
She looked like she’d lost weight.
She looked older, wiser, moodier.
If she was losing weight, why wasn’t she eating? Was it school? Was she being bullied? I made a mental note to ask Cassie if she knew anything while I piled another piece of chicken onto her plate.
I merely shrugged when she raised an eyebrow in question.
Even though the atmosphere between us was a little strained, we smiled and laughed and pretended everything was normal.
So many things lately had been pushing us apart. The knowledge that something festered beneath the surface that neither of us was addressing itched at me just as much as returning to the forest did.
Strange to think I’d only been a boy when I’d found my calling of living in the trees, yet as a man, I’d never accept anything else for my home.
Regardless that circumstances like these made me hunger for space more often than when things were good between us, I forced away such thoughts and focused on Della.
I hated to think of her growing away from me, but at the same time, I welcomed it because it meant she was becoming her own person. I despised the thought of her one day not sharing everything with me and having her own secrets and shadows, but that was a guarantee and yet another piece of growing up that I had to accept.
I didn’t know how John and Patricia did it—watching their kids grow from entirely dependent to utterly independent.
It was heart-soaring and soul-crushing all at the same time.
We finished our meal in silence, sipping on fresh glasses of milk and staring at wildflowers dancing in the evening breeze. The chill turned icy as I took her plate and told her to get warm in our bedroom.
She shook her head and followed me to the kitchen instead, standing beside me as I washed the dishes. She dried away the bubbles, and together, we walked from the Wilson’s home to ours in the barn and closed the door on the world.
Normally, the sense of contentedness overflowed the moment we were back just the two of us.
Tonight though, nervousness flowed instead, and I didn’t swap my jeans for pyjama bottoms like I usually did. For some reason, my instincts were on high alert, and the element of danger wasn’t coming from outside the room but within it.
From her.
From my Little Ribbon who perched on the edge of her bed alive and brittle and not paying any attention to the movie we’d chosen.
To be fair, I didn’t have a clue what we watched, and by the time she yawned and the clock said it was time to sleep, my heart whirred with smoke and anxious anticipation.
Of what, I didn’t know, but as we said goodnight and climbed into bed, I lay in the dark waiting for an attack…just not knowing where it would come from.
* * * * *
I had a dream.
A nonsense kind of dream of darkness and trees and winter.
I’d lost something in the dark, and no matter how fast I ran, no matter how hard I searched, I couldn’t find it.
It wasn’t a simple trinket I’d lost but something fundamental. Something that would kill me if I didn’t find it.
I kept searching, kept hoping, only to run through vast sections of emptiness, finding nothing.
I didn’t know how long I ran for or where the trees disappeared to the longer I sprinted in nothingness, but eventually, sunlight beckoned, and I chased harder, faster. My legs burned. My lungs tore.
But I kept ru
A figure appeared from the darkness.
A woman with flowing blonde hair and white angelic dress.
I slammed into her, halting my chase, welcoming me home.
I moaned at the feel of rightness. The sense of belonging. The knowledge of finding the one person I was meant to find after all this time.
Then I stopped breathing as perfect lips pressed against mine.
Soft and hesitant.
I
I couldn’t see the face of my dream-kisser, but I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, she was the one I’d been searching for. She was the one born for me. She was the one I needed to find before I lost everything.