Animals ✔

Chapter 10

 When I'm finally done speaking I don't feel any lighter. I don't feel like I've gotten anything off my chest. I'm worried. Worried what they'll think of me now that they know. If it weren't for me, Charlie would have survived. I don't know where she'd be, but she would be alive. That's all that would matter.

Tiberius nuzzles into my legs, before backing away and padding out of the room. I stare after him. Does he hate me now? And why does the thought of him hating me make me feel so sick?

Jon scoots closer to me on the couch and wraps his arms around me. He doesn't say anything, but his silence is comforting.

"I miss her," I tell him quietly. "Every day."

I close my eyes, leaning back into Jon and letting his familiar presence comfort me. I feel like we've finally gotten back on track. I don't know how long it'll last.

My eyes don't open again until I hear soft footsteps coming into the room. Tiberius is staring back at me, having changed into what must be some of Jon's clothing, considering the shirt he's wearing is stretched just a little too tightly across his chest.

"I thought you left."

"I could never leave you," he says. I roll my eyes.

Tiberius walks over to where I'm sitting with Jon and offers me his hand. "Come with me?" He asks, "I have somewhere I'd like to show you."

I eye him suspiciously before grasping his hand with mine. "Don't think I've forgiven you for this morning," I tell him haughtily, using his hand to leverage myself slowly out of the chair. I turn to Jon, "If I'm not back in an hour, come find us."

Tiberius pouts, "What do you mean? Don't you trust me?" There's something about him that's so different from the man who was standing over me early this morning that I almost want to say yes.

"No." I mutter bluntly, releasing his hand and following him out of the room. "But I'm curious." And despite my reservations, despite the fact that this morning he was literally at my neck, I feel almost safe when I'm with him. Besides, the more he pisses me off, the easier it'll be for me to light him on fire.

The painkillers I've been taking are working well, but even so, every step I take makes my thigh burn unpleasantly. I grimace.

He looks back at me as he steps into the kitchen and I can tell he wants to help, but instead he turns back toward the door and just slows his pace accommodatingly. I'm glad he doesn't try offering his hand or picking me up. I've been manhandled enough for one lifetime.

It isn't until we pass through the door and he starts walking toward the woods that I feel anxious again. Nothing good has happened in these woods. I almost stop walking. I almost turn back to the house and go curl up in the tacky orange bedroom that I used to hate.

But I don't. I can't afford to be that girl anymore.

I follow him into the woods.

*

Tiberius stopped walking a few moments ago, but he hasn't turned around to face me or said anything since. We're standing in a little clearing at the edge of a modest stream.

There's a small pile of heavy looking rocks near where he's standing, deliberately planted in the shape of a small pyramid, and, somewhat morbidly, I wonder if I'm staring at some kind of makeshift tombstone.

I let him stew over whatever it is he's thinking about.

Instead of speaking, I sit on the ground in the clearing, taking the time to catch my breath and give my leg a break.