Ballad: A Gathering of Faerie by Ballad- A Gathering of Faerie (html)

Author:Ballad- A Gathering of Faerie (html) [Faerie, Ballad- A Gathering of]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-02-29T22:10:26+00:00

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like Nuala. I looked into the empty windows of abandoned shops as we walked, watching our reflections expanding and contracting. Dee, arms crossed across her chest, biting her lip. Me, my hands in my pockets, shoulders hunched, an island she didn't have a boat to get to.

"I feel awful," Dee said, finally. It seemed like an unfair statement. Selfish. Dee must've thought so too, because she added, "About what I did to you. I just--every night, I just cry thinking about how I ruined everything between us."

I didn't say anything. We were passing a shop that advertised menswear, and had a bunch of mannequin heads wearing hats in the front window. My reflection put one of my heads into a derby for a split second.

"It was like--I don't even know why--I mean, I just am so sorry. I don't want everything to be over between us. I know I messed up. I'm just, like, broken. Something's wrong with me and I know I messed up." She wasn't crying yet, but there was a little catch in her voice just when she said "broken." I looked at the cracks on the sidewalk. Ants were marching in straight rows across them. Didn't that mean it was going to rain or something? I thought I remembered my mom telling me once that ants walked in straight lines to lay down scent trails to find their way back home. The closer they walked, the heavier the scent trail. The easier to find the way back home.

Dee grabbed my hand and stopped in her tracks, jerking me to a stop as well. "James, please say something. Please. This was... this was really hard to do. Please just say something."

There were words crowding in my head, but they

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weren't words to be spoken. They were stark characters, hundreds of letters making words that needed to be written down. So here I was, standing here in the middle of a sidewalk, Dee holding my hand tight enough to hurt, looking at me with too-bright eyes on the verge of tears, and here was me, my head stuffed full of words, and I couldn't say anything.

But I had to. When I finally said something, I was surprised at how even my voice was and how coherent the sentences. It was like an omniscient, unbiased narrator had broken into my body and was releasing a public safety announcement. "I don't know what to say, Dee. I don't know what you want from me."

Then, in a rush, I knew what to say, and the words were exploding in my head with my desire to say them: but you hurt me. It hurts like hell. Standing here with you holding my hand is killing me. Are you using me? How could you do that? Don't I mean any more to you than that? I'm just a damn placeholder, is that it?

I didn't say them.

But Dee just stared at me like I had, her eyes so wide that I had to think hard to make sure I really hadn't.

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