Page 71 of Raisa's Cursed Ravens
But I want to.
The words bunch up behind my teeth, fighting to get out. I clench my jaw, fighting the urge to break.
After a long, silent minute, I sigh. “I’m sorry.”
She blinks. “For what?”
“For everything.” My voice is barely there. “For the way I am. For the way I make you feel.”
She shakes her head, confused. “You don’t make me feel bad. You make me feel…” She trails off, her cheeks darkening. “Alive.”
For a second, I almost laugh again. Alive is the last thing I feel right now.
I pick up the knife, turning it in my hands. “Do you know what it feels like to break something so completely that it can never be fixed?” I ask, my voice low.
She doesn’t answer right away.
Then, softly, “Yes.”
I look at her, startled. She’s not lying. I see it in her eyes, the memory of her own guilt, the weight of her own grief, as if it claws through her every moment of the day.
“Do you hate me for it?” she asks again. This time her voice is smaller, almost a whisper.
My heart threatens to break for the weight she carries, the one that isn’t hers and never has been.
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “Gods, no.”
She looks at me, waiting.
I want to tell her everything. I want to say, “I love you.” I want to say, “I’d tear out my own heart if it would make yours lighter.”I want to say, “I’m so fucking sorry for what I did, for what I am, for what I turned you into.”
But I don’t.
Neither of us talks for a long time. The wind whistles through the trees, filling the silence with noise that isn’t quite enough to drown out the screaming in my head.
I’m the one who cracks first. Of course I am.
“I’m not who you think I am,” I say.
She looks at me, blinking. “No one is.”
I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
I pick at the ragged edge of my thumbnail. “You think I’m just another cursed idiot, running from the king.”
She shrugs. “Isn’t that what we all are?”
I shake my head. “Not me. I’m the reason for all of it.”
She doesn’t flinch, doesn’t move. “What do you mean?”
I take a deep breath, the kind that makes your ribs ache. “It was me,” I say. “Not my brothers. Just me.”
She doesn’t react. Just waits.
I press the heels of my hands to my eyes, seeing the memory play out on the inside of my eyelids, frame by frame.
