If I Know You

Chapter 13

I scampered out of that town as fast as my short self could take me. Tears weren't in my eyes yet, but my nose had already erupted with furious, angry snot dribbles.

The cold puddle of shock I'd just fallen into was starting to dry up, and I was starting to realize what it all meant.

Pippa had chosen somebody else.

She'd moved on from me.

As she had every right to. As I'd once told myself I wanted. But knowing that didn't make heart stop screaming. My confident attempt to believe that maybe somebody could love my lumpy self had been too late, and that fact had just turned me back into a hunk of coal.

I'd known for my entire life that no one could love me. Even when I had the miracle Tory had talked about, the opportunity to meet the sleeping princess in person and develop true love, I'd ruined all of it.

All the anger, all the bitterness, the frozen toes of jealousy, everything from pre-Pippa came back and plopped onto my shoulders, making me hunch like an old man, the way Ma had always hated. It would ruin my back, she said.

Good.

Once again, the world was colorless. The sun had burned out. Just like it always had been before and exactly how I'd wanted it to stay before the stupid gods told me stupid things.

This was exactly what I knew would happen. I'd already accepted the truth that I would never have what Tory and Mina, or Ma and Pa had. I'd never be a father. Coming here only made those things more painfully obvious.

I should never have come on this journey. I should have stayed in my room and refused to come out, regardless of how hard King Aren and Queen Elia had cried.

...but then I would never have had those perfect days with her. I'd never have met someone who liked bones and frogs as much as I did. Even if the rest of my life would be a bland bowl of porridge, I'd gotten to feel her sunshine for at least a few days.

If she was happy, then I had what I wanted all along, didn't I? Then why did it have to hurt so much? Why couldn't I have just spoken right when we were in the swamp? Why couldn't I have been enough?

Why did the gods have to send me here in the first place? Why did they have to dangle sunshine in front of me and then take it away?

I was burning and freezing, dying and crying, melting and hardening, and I knew that going back to the angry witch cabin would only torture me more by showing me all of the things I had lost by being so stupid.

But I had no other home to go to. I'd made my home with her, and I didn't know if I could ever get back to the castle of Ki.

My life was going to be a miserable pile of death and hiding from the world anyway. I was already turning into an angry goblin who smelled like eggs and spent time with spiders, talking about eyebrows. Might as well start my suffering now. I'd rest for a moment, grab my things, and go farther into the forest of Somnia, where I didn't have to see anyone ever again.

When I arrived, I looked anywhere but the exterior of the cabin. I sulked through the door, ready to crawl back under the bed like the slug I was.

"Rory?" A familiar sweet voice asked.

I didn't want to look up, but I couldn't not look, and when I did look, my jaw fell off my face. All the painted bones and face sticks and scraps of fabric had been taken off the floor and meticulously organized. It all looked nice, but not as nice as the blanket-covered ball on the bed.

Pippa was there, in her normal purple dress, cradling Moss in her arms. Her nose was a little red ball. A wobble smile appeared on her face.

She sniffed and tried to wipe at her cheeks. "Hi. I'm sorry I took the bed. I wasn't expecting you to come back so early. I'll move."