Page 55 of Above
Being smart wasn’t a blessing from the stars. It was a curse. We thought more deeply. We were plagued with the reality that the bliss of ignorance hid others from. We saw the truth, we knew what the world was and understood our inability to stop the pain.
Intelligence directly led to suffering.
Even worse, people expected more from us. They gave less grace for missteps and refused to accept our limitations. When someone who failed ten times over barely succeeded on their final attempt, they were extraordinary. When someone who had succeeded ten times over went on to fail a single time, they were a waste of talent. They were only ever seen as their defeat. We were born to fail, whether that be by death or exhaustion or the anxiety that plagued us. Like Jeanette, we would fall.
Iwould.
“Is this seat taken?” Talon asked, his bronze cheeks reddening. I shook my head, patting the chair beside me. We had been uneasy around one another, and in that time he had developed a habit of asking before doing. While it was unnecessary for him to ask to sit next to me at dinner, I did appreciate it.
However, today wasn’t a good one for talking. It seemed that every time I fought off the hopelessness and defeat, it found a way to come back stronger. I would go from believing in myself one moment, to feeling utterly out of my depth the next.
“Are you okay?” Talon asked, concern pinching his brow. His hand lifted, reaching toward me and then stilling just above my own. While I wished I were capable of tucking mine in my lap, I wasn’t. So when his amber eyes flicked between my own and our hands, I knew he’d see it as acceptance. And he did.
His palm was warm, like the days that were beginning to fade into excruciating heat. It made me think of Altair’s cold skin.
Yes, I could do so much worse than Talon.
“Yes, I’m fine,” I answered, smiling at him. He beamed back, his bright teeth showing and his eyes crinkling at the edges.
He wore his training leathers, the black decorated with hints of red. A ruby, a chain, a roaring bear. From my vantage point I could make out the muscles beneath, his build so large that he quite literally looked like he could hug someone to death. His shoulder-length hair was pulled up in his usual bun, exposing the hard edges of his square jaw. His lashes and eyebrows were thick, nose wide and mouth large. He was handsome. More thanhandsome. And he was kind. So why couldn’t I just accept his affection without having to think twice?
“Well, I’ve missed you. I thought more about our conversation and I think I understand better what you were trying to say. I know that if I hadn’t gotten magic, I would want my family to fight for me, too.” Earnestness seemed to inflate each word, his honesty burning my lungs like bubbling blisters as I held my breath. A but was coming. “But, I do think you focus so much on your family that you stop yourself from seeing your own potential. Look what happened to that one girl this morning. She wasn’t focused, and that cost her her life. If you don’t make it, Nova…I don’t know how I will. I need you.”
There it was. The real truth. He supposedly understood my desperate need to save my family, but he also had no idea why I couldn’t just focus. No one could feel how I did and disagree with my priorities. But I was done with arguing. His choices were his and mine were mine. We didn’t need to agree. When all was said and done, he’d grow tired of using me for whatever rebellion he was waging against his parents, and then I’d be free to return to my family.
“I’m right here,” I offered, rotating my hand and gripping his back. It was the first time I had ever reciprocated something so plainly, and it was obvious on Talon’s face that he realized it, eyes wide and nostrils flaring slightly. His cheeks heated once more, his hold growing tighter on me. Then he leaned in and kissed me.
Stars, I had fucked up.
The small peck was innocent enough, but I had never manipulated anyone like Talon before. Never needed to lie and steal when it came to someone I cared about, because it was only ever my family I felt that way for. But I had grown to like Talon, clear biases aside, and now I was leading him on.
He’d forget me and move on.
I hoped he would, at least.
My focus went back to my food, and I used the excuse of me being left handed to let go of his fingers, grabbing my fork firmly and not looking away from my plate of chicken, rice, and broccoli as he began to chatter on. At one point, he brought up his mother, and I fully tuned in.
“I swear she is sleeping with fucking Altair. I don’t know what he gains from it, but I saw them leaving one of the closets before strategy class today. Lipstick was all over his neck and her leathers were still unzipped at the back. She even had the audacity to turn and let him zip it for her.”
“Ew,” I said, scrunching my nose. “How low can she sink?”
I never talked poorly of Talon’s mother when he went on these tangents, but I couldn’t help commenting.
“Right? And if my father catches her…” He trailed off, his eyes widening as he shook his head. “She will be dead before she can even try to make an excuse.”
“Wow, I didn’t realize how seriously cores took the sanctity of marriage,” I admitted, surprised by how egregious his father would find it. She wasn’t sneaking around well for someone risking death. And all for Altair? That made no sense. He was such an entitled ass.
“Men do. Women, well, they deal with whatever the man deems best.” He shrugged, shoving nearly an entire chicken breast into his mouth and chewing loudly, brows knitted together as he thought. The sound of his chewing and his shaking leg made my headache worse, but I couldn’t tune him out. Not when I was so interested in what he was about to say. Fingers twirling my necklace, I gritted my teeth and waited. “My father, for example, is known to take women to our house rather often. He makes Mother sleep in her separate quarters of Castle Zade on those occasions.”
What in the fuck was wrong with cores? “And she doesn’t get mad?”
“She doesn’t have the right to,” he responded, shoveling rice into his mouth.
“But he does when she commits the very same crime?” No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t push back the disgust in my voice, making it sound throaty.
“Well, yeah, she’s his, not the other way around.”
Like owning a pet. Core family values at their finest.
