Page 59 of Through the Water

I was scared.

Not of having my heart broken or spending the rest of my life locked inside a cage. No, I was petrified that the real me would never be enough for anyone. So, I let Brad put his hands on my body and took Helen’s horrible advice because their voices would always drown out the sound of my own.

Seeing the dirt caked beneath my fingernails gave me an idea, and I toed off my house shoes, digging my toes into the damp blades of grass.

It was grounding.

And, surprisingly, it reminded me of home. I’d often volunteered to work in the community greenhouse, preparing items to take to the local farmer’s market.

No one ever bothered me there. I could work in peace, only leaving when the palms of my hands were good and callused. I think Tristan was under the impression I was deep in prayer, and there were indeed days where that was true, but it wasn’t why I’d volunteered for the lonely task.

When I was elbow deep in dirt, I wasn’t the daughter of a prophet or a pawn in another one of his games.

I was whoever I chose to be in that moment.

Sometimes, I was a lowly governess, awaiting my beloved Rochester in the garden. I’d snip the dead off of vines and water the massive beds of flowers, all while imagining what it would be like to have someone to call my own. Other times, I was Elizabeth Bennet, walking the grounds with a racing heart as Mr. Darcy professed his love.

“My affections and wishes are unchanged, but one word from you will silence me on this subject forever.”

I could have read the line a million times and never tired of it because back then, I believed that someday, a man might express how ardently he loved and admired me.

It was naïve.

Deep down, I envied and admired these fictional women because they possessed something I lacked—free will. Despite of the period, they weren’t easily swayed by the opinions of men. Love was a decision they made, not something thrust upon them by a voice louder than their own.

Maybe it had never been about running away or finding love, but in being brave enough to live life on my own terms. Everyone had a plan, convinced they knew what was best for me. The constant tug of war had turned me into a powder keg of tension, ready to ignite.

Tristan wanted to use me as an asset to line his pockets.

Brad wanted me broken and in chains.

Morgan wanted me to use my flesh to secure my freedom.

Helen wanted to use me for her own amusement.

But what about me—what did I want?

I squeezed my eyes shut, clenching my fist around the gardening trowel as I fought to hear my own voice over all the noise in my head. The volume reached a brief fever pitch, and when silence descended like a stage curtain, I found myself staring into a pair of glacial blue eyes.

Him.

I wanted Killian—a man who didn’t want me to be someone I wasn’t. A protector. I’d spent my life surrounded by fakes, starving for something real. Something deep.

Unfortunately, he was probably under the assumption I was a complete loon by now.

“There you are, young lady,” Helen crowed as she approached the table. “I was just thinking to myself that I hadn’t seen your face around today. How did your little thing go last night?”

Her upper lip curled, and it took everything in me not to launch the trowel at her face. Whatever doubts I might have had were gone now. The woman had intentionally set me up to fail.

I set my jaw against the wave of heat spreading up my throat and clutched the pendant around my neck, struggling to quash the familiar flare of humiliation. Touching the engraved tentacles had become something of a nervous habit lately, but I liked to imagine it was my talisman.

So far, it wasn’t that great at warding off evil.

Fury scorched my chest and rained ash down on my tongue, but I was a girl with no voice. I opened my mouth, only to sigh in exasperation.

Even if I could have told Helen exactly what I thought of her actions, it would have been pointless. The blame rested on my shoulders. I should have known better than to take advice from a woman who dyed the back of her hair jet black while leaving the front white.

She was a skunk, both in looks and behavior.

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