TBATE: A Hero's Return

You Asshole

TESSIA ERALITH

A full week passed.

I had meetings and I even traveled out of Zestier once, and after the initial burn of frustration settled down, I didn't spend a lot of time thinking about him. It didn't matter that even Grandpa or Aya had no idea where he had gone. That no one had heard a word from him.

He had been gone this long before, I reminded myself, but I am still thinking about that day in the alley, his barely contained fury.

The knock on my door finally came after a month.

I calmed my heart and swallowed back the relief, and told myself firmly that I would tear his head off for leaving like that before holding him tight and appreciating his warmth.

I pulled the door open, only it wasn't Art.

It was Grandpa.

The wave of disappointment that threatened to swamp me was a giant problem, but I had my grandfather to focus on at the moment.

"Little one," he said.

I realized with a jolt that his eyes were rimmed red.

"Oh, God," I said, stepping towards him. "What's happened?"

"It's..."

I frowned, not understanding. Who or what would he possibly come here about?

"Art?" I somehow managed to force out, that horrible feeling of dread that's been simmering in my stomach exploding into buzzing in my ears.

Grandpa nodded. I felt my world come to a complete halt. All thoughts in my head were erased, and a hollow emptiness enveloped me before panic and despair begin to take its place.

"Is he okay? Is he hurt?"

"It's—he's—" Grandpa reached out and took my arms, fingers firm.

I felt it dawn slowly, painfully, those words he couldn't bring himself to say. I shook my head, refusing this. Refusing everything about this whole situation.

"Tessia," he said, not taking it back. "Something happened in Alacrya—they say he—" He broke off before continuing with a voice crack. "He's gone."

He was not gone. Can't possibly be gone. He was just here. Not even a month ago. He was here. Sitting at my table. Sleeping in my bed. Burying his face in my hair.

Telling me he loved me.

"No," I said.

"I'm sorry," he managed, like he needed me to understand it, to really get it. "He's dead."

"No, he is not!" I said, shoving at his chest. I never acted like this with him, yet Grandpa just stood there and took it, as I hit him again and again. He bore the brunt of my frustration in a silent prayer that it would ease my suffering. But alas, it does not.

He pulled me into a hug and I don't cry, not even a single tear. I was just left with a jagged ripped-out hole in me where only one person ever existed. I knew my heart was still there, still beating, pushing blood through my body. But right now it felt like a foreign entity, only a severe ache reminding me of who used to be in it.

None of it meant anything. Not my grandfather's arms or his words or the details he can't give no matter how often I demanded them.

I laid in bed that night, staring up at the dark of my ceiling and considering moving rooms to another in the palace. Burning this bed under me that had so many memories.

I built plans and contingencies, anything to keep my head busy, busy, busy. Busy enough to not think about what I had just learned.

I tried, tried so damn hard, but in the early hours of the morning my exhaustion took over and I couldn't help it.

That last night with Art rose up in my mind with horrible specificity, and only now as it replayed moment by moment did I realize how badly I misread it. He didn't think that there was a chance he wouldn't ever come back. He was saying goodbye.

Like he knew he wasn't coming back.

"You asshole," I said to no one in particular but about the man I loved more than life itself. "You fucking asshole."

I rolled over, burying my face in the pillow next to mine. The one that had his scent on it. One he had no damn right to make his own if he was just going to leave me like this.