Page 56 of Sweet Silver Bells
“This isn’t about me,” Olivia scoffed. “This is about the tree. And how dare you hold me to blame for your feelings of insecurity?”
Hunter watched her stomp out of the kitchen.
Insecurity? How am I insecure?
“Why are you mad, Olivia?”
Get real. She’s right. You’re incredibly insecure about yourself, about her, about what Sarah might think.
“Because I’ll have to sing to make you listen to me, but then you won’t really be there. Not in the way I need you. I thought you could be someone real in my life, someone I can count on, like the roots under the ground. Not someone I would have to control.”
Hunter felt his heart skip a beat, fear inching its way back in as he stared at the sweet, sad, and fallen face of a real monster, an enchantress whom he treated as someone kind, someone loving, and gentle.
My tree siren.
It was a cute pet name for his inner monologue, but perhaps it covered up the very real threat that she did possess, that she could hold over his head: that she held his free will in the palm of her hands.
She needed to go back to the forest.
“You would do that? Even now?” Hunter asked, his voice barely more than a whisper. She heard him, though, judging by the way her body tightened and how her shoulders pulled closer together. Olivia stood, keeping her back towards him until, after a few breaths, her head fell, a show of defeat.
Hunter, so filled with adrenaline that he kept inside, that he felt obligated to hide from view, reached his hand out for her shoulder, but then let it fall.
She will control you, strip you of yourautonomy. That cannot turn into a relationship, so what are you doing here with her?
This was an dishonor to Sarah. The idea that this could have been anything more than a rebound was a joke.
“I would,” Olivia admitted. “I will protect myself, Hunter. Just like I’ve always had to.”
Pain—she carried so much pain. That, Hunter could understand. That, he related to. Her grief, her despair, knowing that who you once were could never exist again, so you then begin to mourn yourself, your smiles, your laughs, your genuine hope and excitement for a future that would never exist.
Fuck it.
His steps were quick and wide as he moved past Olivia into the hallway and turned into his room. After digging under the bed, he pulled out a golf club laced with dust that had once been gifted to him by someone who wrongly thought he’d enjoy the sport. He kept it because he thought it could be a useful weapon for a break-in; he didn’t have the guts to keep a gun in his room.
Hunter stomped back towards the living room, hands gripping the black rubbery top of the club. Olivia watched him, her nose crinkled in a way that was too damn cute, so he quickly looked away from her so he wouldn’t lose his focus, his nerve.
“What’s going to happen?” Olivia’s ethereal voice sounded too close to the song, as if she were warming her vocal chords.
“Don’t sing. Not yet.” Hunter demanded.
“Why?”
“I’ll show you why.” With tremendous force, Hunter took his left hand and pushed the television off the shelf. Olivia jumped back with a scream, but a wicked smile danced across her lips. The dark, solemn glaze that had sunken over her eyes lifted as Hunter experimented, as he gave her what she asked for: someone who listened.
Hunter let the golf club fall beside him as he grabbed the thirty-inch television and pulled it so forcefully that the cord was yanked out of the socket, snapping as the metal prongs bent backwards. He threw the screen down onto the floor. Olivia yelped again at the bang and then giggled, clapping her hands before her chin.
Hunter reached down, clasping the thin metal golf club between his hands, and raised it over his head, hitting the ceiling and sending mistletoe and white drywall crumbling down over them, as if encasing them in a real-life snowglobe.
“This is for the tree,” Hunter yelled as he brought the club down. The thick head broke the screen, creating a web with fat shards waiting to be freed and released.
“Yes,” Olivia screamed.
Hunter raised the club again.
“This is for you,” he said, bringing it back down.
“Yes!” Olivia jumped, her smile beaming.
