The Night Fox by Ashley Wilda

Author:Ashley Wilda [Wilda, Ashley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2023-10-10T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

When I awake, the moon is hovering high above the mountains through the window. Gale is gone, but the covers are still slightly warm where he rested his arms. I sit on the edge of the bed, wrapped in a blanket, and watch the mist undulate. My dreams were a mess of being chased and chasing, never finding what I was looking for, never running fast enough to escape. A fox frolicked beside me, as if unaware of the danger, flickering in and out of existence like a broken streetlamp beam. The dreams didn’t make any sense but are still real enough to haunt me. The heavy truth of them lurks in my skin.

Let him go.

The sentence rings in my head, echoing, echoing. I squeeze my eyes shut, shake my head to rid it of the thought, but it won’t clear.

I tell myself I needn’t place any worth on the words of an apparition, a version of myself that’s not even real. But who am I to judge what’s real and what isn’t in this place?

Let him go.

I don’t want to, I can’t. I can’t let go of you. I don’t know how, I don’t want to . . . but will I ever have a life, holding on to you? Will I ever . . . be happy again?

I don’t know, I really don’t. Why, how, why . . .

I shake myself. Realizing I’ve been rocking back and forth, I force myself to stand. My mind has been spinning so fast for so long, it’s become a black hole. If I sit with it, I’ll have no choice but to be sucked in.

I step into the hall and push open a window, leaning heavily on the stone sill. The mist dances over the grass. Familiar. Untamed.

“Tell me . . .” Who am I even speaking to? God? Raeth? Both? Anyone who will answer. “Is it wrong, to keep loving him?” Wrong, because you don’t believe in God. Wrong, because it’s hurting me. Wrong, because everyone wants me to stop. I don’t want to know. It doesn’t feel wrong. But I’m dying inside.

I sit. And listen. Every muscle tense.

And my heart feels the whisper—no.

No.

It is not wrong to love you.

Hot tears whisper down my cheeks. The bands around my chest loosen. It makes sense. How can love be wrong?

“What's going to happen? To him? To us?”

I wait. Five heartbeats. Ten.

Nothing.

No, I need answers, this can’t be it—

“Do I need to let him go?” Barely audible. The hardest of all.

But this time, the answer comes—no.

I curl into a ball on the hardwood floor. Shaking, I wrap my arms around myself, squeezing tight, tighter, but it’s not the same. Never the same as you holding me.

What do I do now?

“I’m scared,” I whisper into the shadows. I admit it to myself, for a moment. That I’m terrified. Of myself. Of living without you. Of the pain threatening to take me over. I let myself feel it. And then I put it away.

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