Page 106 of Why Cheese?
“You do?” Cheddy asks. “Wait, what do you know?”
“That I need you far more than you’ll ever need me. You’re right. You can do this on your own. Cam can charm himself into any safe bed for the night and pantry for the day.”
Cam bends his head and beams a big smile.
“Cheddy, I don’t think there’s a person alive who’s met and hated you.”
“It’s hard to meet dead people,” Cheddy says and bounces on his toes.
“And Brie.”
Perhaps the liquid courage is wearing off, or maybe Brie’s finally realizing the finality of this. Either way, he bows his head and doesn’t look directly at Roq. “I know. I’m useless. I can’t make cheese, I can’t fight like Cheddy or beguile like Cam.”
“Says the one who was first into our lady’s bed,” Cam nearly whispers to himself, but my ears burn at the mention.
“I’m the wash boy, the gopher, the failure. Destined to never amount to anything more than a wheel of brie.”
Roq flinches and his words dry up. He stares at the ground, his face covered in guilt.
“That’s not true,” I say?No. It couldn’t be me. This fight has nothing to do with me.
“You don’t understand,” Brie says to me. “You’re an outsider.”
“I’ve seen your paintings, Brie.” I turn to face him, putting my back to Roq. “The way you devour books over and over, always finding something new in the dogeared pages. You’re an artist with the tenderest heart I’ve ever known.”
“That makes me weak,” he sneers.
“No,” Roq thunders. “Fragile maybe, like a crystal vase or an icicle in the sun, but you were never weak. I’m sorry that I could have ever made you think that.”
“It—!” Brie cries out, then he softens. “It wasn’t just you.”
Roq clasps his hands together as if he’s about to pray. “I thought I could make amends. I never wanted this to happen to you, to anyone. I had no idea what I unleashed into this world.”
“I, I, I,” Cheddy says. “What about we?”
“We?”
“Don’t tell me that in all this time, all those cellars, the cheese, the long nights, and grateful dusks when we’d celebrate surviving another day were just for you. You can claim to be a selfish prick all you want, Roq, but it’s a rotten lie. And I’m tired of those.”
“I…” Roq stutters and purses his lips.
“Hey. You can’t be here. Clear out!” a large man shouts from the door.
“Give us a minute,” Brie says.
“We’re breaking through ancient brambles of lies and truths here,” Cam adds.
“All I wanted was to free you from this. To…to save you,” Roq gasps.
“That’s just it, Roquefort, Sir Up-his-own-butt,” Cheddy says. “We aren’t your charges. We never were. We all ate the damn cheese we shouldn’t have. Maybe that did it. Maybe it was god’s way of saying these four need a few dozen or so centuries to figure things out. To be together. I don’t pretend to understand his ways. But you treated us differently, as pups instead of fellow wolves, for no good reason. That’s what has to end…or we will.”
Roq shudders, tears glistening in his eyes. He lifts his head and a smile winds up his lips.
“That’s it!”
A hand clamps onto Roq’s shoulder.
“We’re nearly—” Cam says when one of the bouncers throws a punch to his gut. A knotted cherry stem flies from his lips and strikes me on the cheek.
