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Nadia

The seasons push and pull through time. Summer becomes winter becomes summer again. It all blurs together like watercolors.

It’s the evening of Aoife’s twenty-fourth birthday. She’s the most decorated division leader in the Alloy. Most loved by everyone. Meanwhile I have hit a wall. Still stuck as a council member with a mute voice. Nothing I say goes. No one listens when I speak. It’s all just the same.

Three months ago, I visited the doctor. I had grown weak, fatigued, unable to keep any food down. I was experiencing terrible pain in my abdomen and frequent fevers. I thought it was stress-related. I was wrong.

I was carrying, for a very short while. There was never any heart beat. The doctor had told me my body could not sustain or support a child, that I would never be able to give birth. And, if by some miracle I’m able to carry a child, I wouldn’t live past the pregnancy.

The news didn’t hit me like I thought I would. In fact, I was… relieved. I was relieved to know I would never have to give birth to his child.

Aoife was the only one I told. The weeks after the abortion, she helped me with everything. She made my meals, helped me bathe, gave me her ear when I needed it.

We’ve never done anything more than kissing. Perhaps it was because of my fragile state. More likely, however, it’s because neither of us are quite sure what this is, exactly. And, even if this was to be a serious commitment, we couldn’t tell anyone. Not a living soul. Not even Silva.

It’s been one month since I’ve even seen Aoife. Between our two chaotic schedules, it's been busy. That must be why I’m hesitating now, with my fist hovering above the door, her small gift clutched tightly to my chest.

But the door opens before I even knock. Silva looks up at me in surprise. She brushes her long black hair out of her eyes and averts her gaze to her feet.

"Hey Nat."

"Good to see you Silva."

"Y-yeah. I was just heading out."

"Ok. I'll see you around."

I wince inwardly at the encounter once she's gone. There's been a greater rift between us lately. It’s palpable. It’s not my responsibility to mend it. Still, I wonder if she knows about us. She must. I've never been able to hide much of anything from her.

Aoife must not have heard us. She's on the couch, her back facing me, staring out the glass wall at the campus below. A cigarette hangs from her lips, the smoke warping the shadows of the dim light on her face.

Time has not weathered the violent clench in my chest every single damn time I look at her. If anything, the feeling has only grown. It’s dangerous now. I am all too wary of my own movements around her, of my own hands.

I take a moment to soak it in. How she’s grown, evolved. I’ve overheard some say her beauty is untouched by age. They’re wrong. She somehow gets more and more beautiful. Even now, ashing the glow of a cigarette butt on the edge of an empty glass, she is nothing short of celestial.

I shut the door behind me softly, watching as the hallway lights retreat back behind the walls. I don’t move beyond that. I don’t breathe, afraid of waking her from her trance. Desperate for just one more look. One more glance at her unyielding aura.

“You know,” she hums, shaking the fragile quietude with a gentle voice. She keeps her eyes on the lights below. “You have this still nature about you, Nadia. I never have to look to know you’ve entered the room. The very air announces your arrival for you.”

My footsteps are barely audible across the wooden tiles. I can’t bear to make a noise, to spoil this rift in time and space with some foolish hello. Still, she turns to look at me, expectantly. As though there are any words that could overcome the awkwardness of our time apart.

“And before you tell me I’m indulging in bad habits, you should know that Silva already beat you to it,” Aoife grumbles before snuffing the embers out on the side of the glass. Sparks fly around the cigarette butt, dusting her fingerprints in tiny orange fireworks.

I’m close enough to smell the tobacco on her breath, mixed with alcohol and that strawberry sweetness of hers. Aoife’s eyes scour me out in the darkness, practically glowing their greenish gold hue.

“Are you doing that thing? Where you let the silence talk for you?”

It takes a while for me to find the right words.

“I much rather listen to your voice.”

“So she does speak,” Aoife teases, nudging my elbow when I’m closer.

“Happy Birthday, Aoife.”

“Don’t,” she mutters softly, turning her eyes away before letting them give away all her secrets. It’s too late, though. I already saw.

“You don’t look too happy about turning twenty four,” I say, though I know this has nothing to do with the number.

“You should have seen the looks I got today. Everyone’s already treating me like an old woman. Can you believe it? Twenty fucking four and Ishna’s looking at me like I’ve expired.”

“Ishna doesn’t know a damn thing about beauty, even when it’s staring him right in the face.”

Aoife shakes her head, rests it on my arm. “Pa told me I have to stop messing around and find a man already. He says it’s importantfor me to have a son. For fucks sake, people are still saying that shit in this day and age?”

“Your father called?” I ask, reading right through the bullshit. Aoife swallows, sinking deeper into my side as I stand. Her hair is soft, radiant like the morning sun. But her skin is cold to the touch.

“It’s nothing,” she mumbles. “Nothing important.”

“Your dad-”

“Is as fine as a crazy old man with stage 5 dementia can be.”

“And your mom?”

Aoife hesitated, drawing in a stuttered breath. It tells me all I need to know.

“Nothing. It’s nothing.”

Carefully, I sink down on the couch beside her. There’s a wall between us, even with her head on my shoulder now. I have no idea what to do to make it disappear. I’ve never been good at comforting, at consoling emotions. I only know facts.

“When?” I ask.

She laughs. It’s that kind of laugh that isn’t laughter at all, but a mockery of the sound. A sharp exhale through her nose and a shake of her shoulders and a curve of her lips, but her eyes… her eyes are drowning in darkness. A spare tear catches at her lashline before she can hastily wipe it away.

“You see right through me. Always.”

I’m quiet. Waiting. She knows it too.

“Last night. I got the call last night. She was found two hours earlier.”

I brush my fingers through her hair, holding her head close to me. She continues, unprompted. I let her speak. Like always, it’s all I can do.

“Dad found her in the basement, hung in LED string lights like some… some kind of horrible ornament. Because apparently the rope wasn’t strong enough. Didn’t even unplug them, can you believe it? Pa said he watched the angels take her, that’s why she was covered in lights.”

Aoife begins to cry in my arms, shaking like a leaf. Her tears are angry tears. I can tell because she’s anti-laughing again all the while.

“Your mother was a weak woman, she was mortal,” I say after a short while. Aoife’s next breath sounds stolen from her. I never know the right thing to say.

“You’re right,” she sighs, gripping at my sweater tightly. “My mother was a weak woman. But not because she was giftless. Because she was selfish.”

Same thing, I almost say but I catch my tongue. Saying anything now will not make a difference, nor will it help ease her pain.

“My mother failed me,” Aoife continues. “She was a terrible mother, the kind of woman who never wanted kids and despised me for gaining more attention because of my looks than her. She hurt me. She humiliated me. She despised me. So why-” Her voice catches in the most beautifully heartbreaking way. I clutch at her almost as tightly as she does to me. Because something deep inside me hurts and aches so painfully and I’m not at all sure why.

“-why do I miss her? Why do I still love her?” She does not expect an answer, which is good because I don’t have one. I don’t understand her emotions. I hate my mother, I always have and always will. And I will never forgive her for what she did to me. But perhaps it is because my brain is factual. And thus, limited. Unlike hers, which loves and forgives and hurts so easily.

I want to put a wall around her heart. So nothing could ever hurt her again.

“You shed tears for those who don’t deserve it. You mourn those who have hurt you. And still you blame yourself for not saving them.”

“Because I’m weak, right?” She asks, chuckling weakly. The sound comes out more like a whimper. I hold her tighter, so tight because I’m afraid she’ll fall right through my fingers.

“No,” I say into her tufts of red orange hair. “Because you are strong. Stronger than anyone else I know. Only the strong suffer in place of the weak.”

Aoife doesn’t say anything in response. She only keeps me close to her. Her breath tickles my neck, stinging with warmth despite the cold of her hands.

“Still,” I mutter. “You cannot save everyone, Brooks. You’ll kill yourself trying.”

“I cannot just sit back and watch. How could I possibly live with myself knowing I did nothing to save even one person?” she asks, looking up at me with watery eyes. I wish, more than anything, I could understand her when she’s like this. But I can’t, no matter how hard I try.

“You saved me,” I whisper in her ear. And she did. But she turns her eyes away, wiping at them to stop her crying. A tear still slips through, falls from her chin like a dew droplet from a maple leaf.

“No,” she whispers back, smiling sadly to herself. “No I didn’t.”

It begins to rain outside. Droplets splatter against the window with a sudden fury. It’s loud, but nothing is louder than this barrier between us. Solid as bone.

And because I have no idea what she means by that, or what I can do to rectify the statement, I peel myself away and close her fingers around the small box in my hands. 

“Your gift.”

“I thought we promised no gifts?”

“It’s not really a gift. I-I mean it’s small. It’s nothing, really.”

She carefully slides the box out of its wrapping, popping the lid of the velvet case. Inside is a small golden locket, made with real gold. And, inside the locket is a small engraving. It says,

“My light,” she whispers aloud. I cringe.

“I-It’s nothing! I know it’s lame, and maybe childish, so it’s ok if you hate it or throw it away. Actually please throw it away I can’t fucking look at that thing anymore. Oh god you’re really quiet. You hate it, don’t you?”

Aoife knocks into me so hard that I stagger and fall flat against the couch cushions. She straddles my hips and holds me so tight I can’t breathe. And then she’s kissing me, desperately. And she tastes like cigarette smoke and whiskey and some kind of beautiful and cataclysmic mistake and I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.

Her eyes look like flaming jewels when she pulls away. She licks at her lips, seductive in a way only she can muster, before grinning. Any trace of her tears are suddenly gone, replaced with something else. Something predatory.

“I love it,” she sighs. And my heart soars. I speak without realizing it.

“I love you.”

Her smile is gasoline. I am a match.

But no one ever told me that to burn is to burn entirely. To burn wholly. To burn out.

But in that moment, all that mattered to either of us was each other. And not even once did I think of Newman Howls. Only ever of her. And, even as she kept breaking apart to ask for continuous permission, my answer did not waver. In fact, I was the one who stripped off my clothes. I was the one who kissed her into the mattress, who sunk into her warmth and molded myself to her fire. And it wasn’t like any single time with Howls. Not in the slightest. This felt… right. 

Aoife clasped the locket around her neck later that night as we lay in bed. It shines like a small flame from her naked body. It suits her. It suits her well.

I’m fighting sleep with a fury, always desperate for just another glance. But I’m on the losing side this time.

“Sleep if you’re tired. No need to be a hero all the time.”

Her words made me smile. If only she knew.

“Tell me a story, Aoife,” I murmur sleepily into the crook of her shoulder. She doesn’t miss a beat.

“There was once a goddess of the sun. The people called her Amaterasu. Have you heard this one before?”

I try to speak, but exhaustion is a heavy weight on my tongue. I close my eyes, let the silence speak for me. The confines of her dormitory expects nothing of me, nor does her hand stroking my hair, coaxing my body to rest. There are very few places in this world where I am not on edge. But here, with her, I am safe.

And, for now, that’s enough.

***