Mercy & Fire

39. Passing notes and Lavender Pt. 2

Rovan

Soft snores wafted through the room as I stared up at the warm glow of a candle on the ceiling, trying to distract myself from the fact that Roselena was curled up in my bed merely a few feet away. It was odd to know she went to the extreme of choosing to sleep in my room rather than be alone, and it made me curious to the point of fighting the urge to read her diary myself.

I laid back on the couch with my arm behind my head, my fingernail tapping back onto the couch restlessly. Deciding I wasn't going to sleep anyway, I swung my legs over the edge of the couch and stretched out my stiff muscles. One look at her sleeping form, and I felt my stomach flip like it did when I was a kid avoiding Dhernon guards on the street.

Unable to fight my urges, I approached the bed, my fingers reaching for her pillow. My heart pumped with adrenaline as I wedged my fingertips under the cushion and paused to take a look at her face. Her eyelids fluttered in deep sleep, and the plumpness of her cheeks weighed down to the left of her face, making her look quite... cute. Like a fluffy baby rabbit snoring the night away.

I heard her snore in the forest, and it was a lot louder then – probably from exhaustion. I found it endearing before, but the softness of her snores now made me fight the aggressive desire to squeeze her in my arms.

Shaking my head, I focused on my task of stealth, accepting that I was about to invade her privacy. I preferred invading her privacy and avoiding possible catastrophe rather than remaining oblivious simply for the slight chance that she may like me as a person.

Besides, I was way past the point of respecting her privacy. I already snooped through nearly the whole journal, and I doubted there was anything new for me to read.

The most I could do was pretend I had never read it and save her pride.

It was clear to me that someone had found while I was nursing Roselena out of her fever at the army base, and in my fear, I completely forgot about it. Someone clearly found it and brought it here for a reason, and part of that reason was curled on my bed because she was afraid.

My attempts at prodding and teasing it out of her only ended in her favor. I had a feeling I should get used to that.

Regardless, there was nothing more to do besides ignore the new and irritating worries about right and wrong that seemed to slither into my mind. I carefully reached under the pillow and felt around for the journal until I grazed the spine of it.

My eyes remained on her face to make sure she didn't stir as I reached farther to grab ahold of it. Slowly, I pulled and pulled, apprehensive of what would happen if she woke up.

Undoubtedly, she would rip me a new one, and I would be left with no choice but to argue the truth out of her.

The soft sound that left her throat made me freeze in place, the journal only halfway out from under her pillow. Her eyes didn't open, but she did move to wrap her hand around my wrist loosely, her thumb twitching against my skin before settling back to sleep.

An apprehensive, relieved breath rushed out of me as I pulled the journal out completely. I settled down onto my knees and began to flip the journal pages.

Nothing was different. My eyes graced the messy, tilted script I once memorized, but nothing was different. I kept flipping the pages until I reached the point where I had been unable to read due to having met her in the forest. Here, I strained against the curiosity of reading it and kept flipping the pages like a madman pretending to be blind.

Then my eyes grazed across a word that caught my attention.

Without thinking, I paused, a familiar, dark feeling swirling in my stomach.