Collection of Older Works

Faethfully Yours: Chapter Twenty-Eight

 Reading from a leather bound book, Ivan didn’t bother looking up. Instead uttering something curtly from under his eyes, he went on addressing the class. The young boy’s brow furrowed at Ivan's words and I understood his reaction all too well.  Clearly, Ivan was being an ass.  But never had anything been more comforting. It was all the proof I needed to know that the jerk in the robe was without a doubt, my Ivan.

 The child looked to me then back to Ivan and shrugged as the rest of the class stared on, indifferent to my presence. Unsatisfied with the lack of answer, Ivan abruptly blew out a sigh and shut the book in equal frustration.

I braced. Digging my nails into the stone floor, I waited.  Standing was an option but I couldn’t move, partly because of exhaustion, both physical and emotional.  But also because it was Ivan—my Ivan, the man I’d travelled through hell and high water to reach. And in moments he would turn, he would lower his eyes and see me. And then…

And then?  That was the question.

How would he react? Would he be happy to see me? Would we have that magical movie moment where we would run toward the other with open arms? Would he hold me, promising to never let me go? Would he confess that he was miserable and breathing was a chore without me? Damn it, would he simply admit that he missed me? Would he wipe just one tear? One tear…

For a split moment, I dreamt those things. For a slight measure of time, I lost myself to my mind and stopped being Charlie the ass kicking faerie. I stopped being the crazy bastard daughter of an evil king. I stopped living in the madness that was my life and I allowed myself the fantasy. For that moment, I was just a regular girl in love.

I dreamt those things because I wanted—needed to believe them. Because it was there, at my most vulnerable state, filthy and broken, without a body and on the floor that I was moments away from learning the truth.  I was finally going to know the answer to His Essence’s question—Did Ivan love me.

I held fast to my girlish fantasies because seeing Ivan standing there within reach, I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else but on that floor, waiting for that answer. My pride and dignity were there, but so was my heart on my sleeve—you know what? Screw the sleeve. My heart was on the floor, alongside me equally bruised and just as bloodied. If Ivan wasn’t happy to see me, my pride would stay intact, so would my dignity as no one could take those away from me. But my heart? It was down to its last lifeline.

So I lay there, and I waited. I would have spoken but the knot in my throat clenched tighter to where it physically hurt, robbing my words.

Flicking his eyes up, Ivan looked to the dozen pairs of eyes that stared coldly in my direction. Trailing their gaze, finally, finally he saw me.

Silence.

Blanching, the book slid slowly from his hands, crashing against the floor with a resounding thud. In my head it all happened in slow motion. The sound of the book hitting the floor then falling open rippled into my hearing in lagging waves.  That might have also been because I was set to pass out at any moment.

There was more silence. It hung thick and sweltering all around us for a long, long moment.

He saw me, or at least I think so because the room still spun and things shifted around erratically to my eyes.  With what little I could muster, I pushed back onto my knees. Still, Ivan didn’t move. But he paled further which was surprising seeing as he was already nearly transparent.

 When he finally said something, he muttered it low and steady and I didn’t understand a word of it. But he wasn’t speaking to me. Whatever he said, the children rose from the carpet where they sat staring attentively at him. Like tiny soldiers, they lined up by Court in an eerie unison. Flipping their hoods over their heads and shielding their small hands beneath their sleeves, they filed out of the room. Passing on either side of me, their eyes peeked from under their hoods but there was no emotion. I could have just as well been invisible.