Page 111 of Gift from the Tree

“Willow.”

“Caspian.” His name is barely audible leaving my lips. I was expecting the cruel and sarcastic tone he usually uses while speaking to me, not one drenched in regret.

“Ready to go home?”

Home. Do I really have one of those?

Without answering him, I look at Oakly. All her guys have made their way up the steps and are standing around her at various distances, other than Jamie, who is glued to her side.

“Message me later.” I give her a small smile before looking over the guys and adding, “Treat her right.”

I meant for it to be deadly and threatening, but it came out more like pleading and they all look at me with varying degrees of emotion across their faces. Except for Jamie. He’s shooting daggers at Caspian, which makes him my favorite of her Nexus.

Turning to leave, I don’t look at Caspian as I walk down the steps and start down the drive to get out of the wards. I didn’t think about how it would make me feel again seeing him after having time to think about his awakening.

I keep replaying the horror I saw teenage him go through at the hands of the rebel group over and over. Why Elementra thought I needed to see him repeatedly tortured and stuck in a bright room full of light so he couldn’t access his gift or heal, I don’t know.

He obviously isn’t going to let me continue to avoid his gaze or not speak, though, because instead of just transporting us out, he stands beside me and stares at the side of my face until I turn to him.

“What?” I snap.

“You’ve lost weight,” he says as if it displeases him.

I scoff at his stupid observation. “Can we go?”

“They don’t know I was coming to get you.” He shrugs like it’s no big deal.

“What? Where do they think you went?” Is he fucking serious right now?

“I don’t tell them everywhere I go.”

Pinching the bridge of my nose and shaking my head, I turn my back to him and take a deep breath. I’m having a hard enough time going back right now and he tells me that they don’t even know I’m coming. Not that I think they wouldn’t want me back based on all the messages I’ve received, but this wasn’t supposed to be some sort of surprise for them.

“Don’t punish them for what I did. Don’t punish them for my issues.”

Whirling around so fast my hair slaps him in the face, rage courses through my blood. “Don’t do that. Don’t sit there and try to take the blame for them when you’re all responsible for this. And don’t you dare attempt to tell me what to do again. I’m punishing no one. All of you did this to me, not the other way around.”

“So you can forgive Gaster for keeping this a secret and his own as well but not them?” His familiar coldness slowly seeps into his eyes.

“That’s so fucking different, and you know it!”

“How? How’s it fucking different? He has a bond with you and hid it and hid the fact he knew about ours,” he yells, throwing his hands in the air.

“He’s meant to guide me, be there for me, teach me. And he’s done all of that. Am I pissed he kept this a secret? Fuck yeah, but he did everything he was supposed to other than tell me about the bond. He’s supported me in every way since I arrived. You, them…” I trail off, my emotions getting the best of me. I can feel the pressure building behind my eyes.

“What? Us what? We kept a secret from you, a secret they all had the intention of telling you as soon as me and Tillman got home,” he argues.

He doesn’t get it. If he doesn’t get it, then neither will they and this will be disastrous.

“It’s not just about keeping it a secret, Caspian. It’s about how all of you let me walk around emotionally confused and feeling like a burden for weeks. It’s about how after years of being raped repeatedly, the first man I trusted with my pleasure and vulnerability was keeping a secret of this magnitude the whole time. It’s about how all of you watched the horrors I lived through and never thought, maybe we should tell her these moments are important, and from here on out, she’ll never feel worthless again because we’ll be there for her. You all were supposed to love me, not lie to me. It’s about how you all chose yourselves over me. You didn’t choose me.” Sobs try to rip through my chest as my tears block my vision, but I choke them down the best I can. I want to be strong. I need to be. I can break when I’m alone.

“Willow, please listen—”

“I can’t, not yet. Take me back to the mansion, Caspian, please.”

He was supposed to be the one who was going to make this easy by ignoring me, not talking to me, or stirring my emotions. But luckily, he doesn’t argue anymore as he holds his arm out for me and transports us.

Stepping out of the transport and onto the back lawn, looking up at the mansion, I’m hit with a feeling of home, the answer to my question I just asked myself, and that makes me want to shove it down as far inside of me as I can. I hate that they feel like home to me when I don’t for them.

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