Theodosia

c h a p t e r t w e l v e

EPILOGUE

Everyone was quickly becoming tired of Theodosia and Ahkmenrah.

After the night of the party, when Ahkmenrah taught Theodosia how to dance and they became official friends, they quickly became inseparable and everyone but them seemed to know exactly why. To them, they simply enjoyed each other's company, and despite the lingering butterflies and the word "like" sticking to the back of their minds, they didn't ruin the friendship they had developed.

Besides, neither of them would have even known how to broach the subject of love with one another. Ahkmenrah was afraid Theodosia would shut him out again, and every time Theodosia thought about it, she got itchy and red.

But then started the longing glances, the rosy cheeks, and the vehement denial. It was sweet – at the start – but after months of waiting for one of them to make a move, the museum was left utterly disappointed.

Theodosia and Ahkmenrah were just friends – friends who constantly bothered their friends with their woes to the point where those friends were about ready to lock them in a room together until they finally admitted their feelings to each other, and everyone could stop hearing about it.

Their nightly routine of staring at one another when the other wasn't looking was going as strong as it did every night. Tonight, it was Ahkmenrah watching Theodosia as she braided Korinna's hair, the two girls chatting animatedly over something he couldn't hear.

Larry, Nick, and Teddy stood with him, waiting for the Pharaoh to finally blink. But, if he had, they had missed it.

"Why don't you just tell her how you feel?" Larry finally asked, breaking Ahkmenrah from his thoughts.

Ahkmenrah wanted to – desperately – but despite not knowing Theodosia for very long, he had grown to know her very well. Becoming friends was one hurdle to jump over, but telling her how he truly felt might officially scare her off. Despite being so brave in other ways, Theodosia was ultimately skittish when it came to relationships.

She was avoidant – something she had come to learn about herself now that she had friends outside of the Spartan exhibit.

Ahkmenrah had been so excited to meet the girl with the melodious voice who had been coming to talk with him. He found her charming long before he met her that night. She had taken his breath away. The girl with the laughter like bells and the tendency to ramble when there was no one around to stop her was already beautiful to him, but seeing her radiant blue eyes made him fall completely.

But despite how much she enthralled him, it became clear to him very fast that she did not feel the same way.

She would hardly even look at him.

Ahkmenrah was elated when they danced together, and ecstatic when she talked to him the next night – but he knew it was under the presumption that they were friends. He worried that if he tried to push for anything more, she would turn away again. If she didn't feel the same way, would she still want to be his friend, or would she return to the Theodosia who couldn't look him in the eye?

But that was not the only time he caught a glimpse of the skittish Theodosia.

Sometimes she would lose her head and fight with Larry, and it would take days before she would face him again and apologize. She fought with a group of elegant Chinese women from the Asia exhibit and thought Ahkmenrah would never want to speak to her again. She bothered Agnes with one too many questions and made her angry and she was distraught the entire night until Agnes finally told her she wasn't mad anymore.