𝐅𝐎𝐎𝐋𝐒 𝐆𝐎𝐋𝐃 ᵍⁱˡᵇᵉʳᵗ ᵇˡʸᵗʰᵉ

08

-🌸-

CHAPTER EIGHT

Penny walked to school alongside Christian without her usual smile.

Once they got to the building he glanced away from the wood he was carving and towards his sister. Her mouth was tugged downwards subtly, her cheeks redder than usual. She didn't talk, just walked ahead. "Everything okay?"

"I'm just tired." Penny nodded one last time before walking towards Anne and Diana. She smiled at the two girls as she put her and Christian's bottles of water in the cool stream.

"Is that Cole?" Anne asked, looking towards a boy sitting a distance away from them, drawing in a notebook. "He looks different."

"He looks positively mature. Not at all like he did before harvest," Diana added.

Penny sighed as the two girls grabbed each others hands, running into the school house. She turned back to look at Cole. It was clear he had gotten taller and had grown into his features more.

She turned away as a ball landed at her feet. Her fingers latched onto the baseball as she picked it up. Billy stepped forward, baseball glove outstretched, towards her. As she placed the ball in the glove, he looked down at her. "New dress?"

Penny's family was wealthier than most, meaning her mother could afford to buy nice silks and yard to sew her new dresses and Christian new shirts. Penny had at least twelve dresses in her closet. She varied them out through the week and nobody had noticed she hadn't worn the dress she had on. Except Billy. Who was probably the least observant person Penny had ever met in her life.

"Yeah," she replied, letting go of the ball as it landed in his glove. "Mama finished making it yesterday."

"She did a good job," Billy said, a ghost of a smile on his face.

Penny nodded, before walking into the school house. As soon as she stepped inside, she let out a deep huff of air. Too many thoughts were swirling around in her head and she couldn't handle it. Her gut kept churning like a wheel and her brain kept spiraling.

-🌸-

"And with what face, after my pretext made, shall I appear O' Queen, at Camelot—"

"I think the entire poem is shameful," Josie spoke up, interrupting Mr. Phillips. "They should be tarred and feathered."

Penny turned in her chair to look at the girl.

"Guinevere is married to the king, not Lancelot."

"Oh Mr. Phillips, could you please skip to the part of the poem where Elaine's pure and true love turns most tragical?" Anne asked.

"No," he simply answered. "Do not interrupt me again."

Penny sighed, turning back to her reader as Mr. Phillips continued. She had been trying to focus in school the past eight months Gilbert had been gone. But the longer he was away, it got harder and harder to find any motivation to progress. She couldn't explain it, but the farther away from him she was, the longer he was gone, the more she fell into a hole she knew she couldn't crawl out of.

She didn't know where he was. She couldn't see him. She couldn't speak to him. She couldn't hug him. She just continued sinking lower and lower, more and more she fell into that dark hole she could feel eating her from the inside.