Page 2 of The Outcast
She shrugged. “I know. But Aubri kicks my ass. I think her parents gave her steroids for breakfast as a child.”
“For real?” My eyes widened because that would explain a lot.
Her laugh made a bit of water spill from her mouth. Using her left hand, she dried it away. “No, silly. Of course, they didn’t feed her steroids. She’s just blessed with amazing genes. All the Aureliuses are.”
“Not Freya. She told me she doesn’t know how to fight.”
“Ah, yeah. Freya.” Sparrow frowned and looked away.
“What about Freya?”
She was quiet for a long moment, plucking the grass with a thoughtful expression. “She’s always been different.”
“You don’t like her?”
Meeting my gaze, she emphasized, “IloveFreya. She’s just… different.”
“How? She seems normal to me. I enjoyed spending time with her and her mother Pearl when they took me to meet their friends in the Motherlands.”
“I know. Freya is kind and it would be difficult to find someone who doesn’t like her, but it’s like she lives in a bubble.”
“How so?”
“She’s always kept us at arm’s length. I think the person she’s closest to is her mother. Pearl and Freya can talk for hours while the rest of us seem to sort of… I don’t know, I guess the best way to describe it is that we bore her.”
“You bore her?”
“I think it’s because her mind is so quirky and brilliant.”
“Hmm.” I stretched my legs and joined her in plucking at the grass. “For what it’s worth, Freya said a lot of nice things about you.”
“Good. I have nothing bad to say about Freya either. For one, I respect that she always comes up with projects that benefit our country. She’s sweet and generous, and I consider her my friend. It’s just that my relationship with Freya is nowhere as close as the one I have with Aubri.”
“That’s different. You and Aubri are best friends.”
“Sure, but that’s the thing; Freya never had a best friend and it’s not for lack of people trying to get close to her. She just has that bubble around her, you know?”
“I see.” I tore up the grass in my hands. “In that case I feel honored that she took such an interest in me these past weeks. She made me feel incredibly welcome at the Gray Mansion and asked me a million questions about France. When she and Pearl took me to meet Athena, Finn, and Linea, we had such a fun time. I got the feeling that Linea and Pearl are close.”
Sparrow brushed her curly, black hair back. “Are you in love with Freya?”
I didn’t laugh at the question but simply shook my head. “No.”
She studied me as she asked. “Linea?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“I’ve told you. We French don’t fall in love.”
A bird chirped in a nearby tree as Sparrow tilted her head. “Belle did.”
“She’s an anomaly. We learn from childhood to suppress any romantic feelings and in time it’s so ingrained in us that I doubt we could fall in love even if it was legal.”
Brushing grass from her legs, Sparrow asked, “Do you ever feel like you’re missing out on something?”
I laughed. “On the contrary. I see how you people are missing out. How old are you?”
