Page 55 of Love, Nemesis
“There she is,” Lethe said, folding his fingers behind his head as he lay back in the grass again.
He looked over just as Jasper glanced up the pathway from camp, seeing he and Ana sitting together before withdrawing back toward camp. Lethe rolled his head in his hands, looking back over at Ana, who’d noticed it too, her eyes still set on the campsite.
“You want to go tell him everything’s okay? I won’t be offended. That way I can smoke.”
She exhaled through her nose, brushing a loose strand of hair out of her face.
“No,” she said. “Jasper knows me.” She remained seated, folding her knees under her as she sat straight, all stone again. “Your tricks won’t work here, so unless you can start acting less like a war hero, you’ll realize very quickly you aren’t in good company. Is that what you want? Because you’re stuck with us too.”
“Can I have my knife back?” he asked.
“No.”
He bit the inside of his cheek, inspecting her as he evaluated her statement.She’d issued it like a machine.
Ever since he’d seen her at the festival, he thought he’d had a sense of her, the conviction to be enlightened and the irresistible desire to be fallible. It was a conflicted pairing, a soldier in a wrinkled lilac dress with wild, black hair.
Ana had seemed like a picture of the human struggle. Struggle held the vibrancy of life, and the most tormented vines made the best wine.
That wasn’t this object, sitting in front of him like a square, human brick, all measured edges and rough, flat surfaces.
“Fine,” he sighed, feeling tired. He leaned back against the tree again, tucking the cigarette behind his ear before removing a packet of peanut butter and a cinnamon stick from his pocket.
Ana stared as he opened it, glancing up in time to see her perplexed expression.
“What?” he asked.
“Where did you get that?”
“Jasper’s bag,” Lethe said, offering it to her. “Want some?”
“No. You stole it. Where did you find them?” She watched as he dipped the cinnamon stick in the peanut butter and stuck it in the corner of his mouth.
“We’re all traveling together, aren’t we? We’re a team? You’re all welcome to anything I have.” He spoke past the cinnamon stick as he reached to put his pack of cigarettes away.
Ana glanced back at camp and then glared at Lethe.
He glanced off, looking up at the sky. “You know, I always used to see the Black Train over the mountains here. I wonder if we’ll see it tonight?”
“Stop it,” she said.
“What?” he asked, raising his eyebrows at the sudden fire in her voice.
“First the flowers, the cinnamon sticks, and now this,” she accused, though he wasn’t quite sure what he was being accused of. She didn’t elaborate.
“What?” he asked again.
She narrowed her eyes at him, and he tried to figure out what she might be referencing. She looked away after a while, scratching her temple as she took a breath.
“What did I do?” he asked, standing abruptly as she started to get to her feet.
He reached for her to hoist her up, but as soon as he grazed the skin on her arm, she whipped back, throwing her hand down over his forearm and stumbling back toward a tree.
His hands retreated up. “All right.”
“I don’t like being touched,” she said, straightening.
“You don’t seem to mind Jasper,” he said.
