Untitled Princess Carolyn Project

Chapter 12

When we make it back to the shelter to find Jackal outside with a fire. He sees us and immediately gets up and backs away.

"Have you calmed down yet or are you going to skin me for leaving the shelter." He jabs at me.

I open my mouth to respond angrily but I'm still in shock. I shut my mouth and stare past him for a second. In the distance, I can see him give me a bitterly confused look. Everything is so far away and I can't breathe. I stumble stupidly into the shelter we built and set myself onto a sleeping bag. Staring at the wooden wall of decaying logs that we hastily threw together.

A tent would be nice.

I can hear Perellies and Jackal talking outside the shelter. It's too muffled for me to hear. Jackal Steps inside and I can hear him say something about cooking to Perellies. He sits down next to my head to talk to me.

He starts saying something but no matter what I do I can't hear him. I close my eyes and wait for everything to come back into focus.

"Analia? Can you hear me." I hear after a minute or two.

I nod.

"Are you alright? Perellies told me what you saw."

That's when the tears come.

"She was my friend. One of my closest friends since I was taken there. She always agreed with me when it came to ailos and she called the woman a horrible name. They were using me. Anything they could do to keep me happy and stupid. I can't believe I ever let myself think that I could trust them."

He hesitantly strokes my hair.

"If it's any consolation, from what I've seen and heard from Michael when you weren't around, I don't think he was using you."

"Nobody would've thought that about Aurelia either."

"But you never heard the things she could say when you weren't there. I heard him talk about you."

I wipe my eyes and sit up.

"Like what?"

"He said that there's nothing like your smile, that you would never know how amazing your smile made him feel. He loved talking about how the only books you'd read were old history books that probably weren't accurate anymore. He talked about every outfit you wore. Even the one you wore for the test. He wondered how you learned to fight the way you did. He said that you looked like the strongest person and he was always scared to get paired up with you for sparring. You were never not the subject of his conversations."

"How did you overhear all of it then?" I laugh, elbowing him gently.

"I didn't overhear all of it. Just the times I was near him. Perellies and I were talking about it a couple days ago. She hears most of it."

We laugh for a moment and a somber silence follows quickly. I shake my head.

"The last time we talked we were arguing."

"That's just bad luck."

"It's also really sad. I'm running back to my home and if I'm lucky I'll never see him again. Which hurts to say since he cared about me so much and I'm leaving."

He's silent for a long moment.

"I mean- yes, while it does hurt, it also hurt you to be taken away from the people you've loved and grown up with. He still took that away from you even if you do really care about him. Doesn't losing everyone else and knowing that he took them from you, doesn't that hurt more?"