Page 69 of Ruby
“No regrets,” he says like a choreographed response. He always says this but I know how dismissive I’ve been.
“No. I do better,” I try to speak as coherent as possible.
“I understand. I fail too. No regrets, Ani,” he trills, cuddling me closer. It’s impeccably frustrating that he’s bending all my efforts at reconciliation but he’s so sweet it’s hard to stay mad at him.
“Will change. Will be kinder,” I vow to him.
“Ani is good.”
“Nobody agree. Need change,” I argue.
“Of course. All change many times. Molting.”
“What?” I ask, confused.
“Shed feathers. For showing age. For mating. For new times. Molting.”
“Sure. Like that,” I agree.
“Wise you do, yes.”
“You call me mean?” I say, laughing.
“Yes. Before. You choose better. New feathers outside. New inside.”
A carefree laughter erupts from my throat before I can stop it. He sure is ridiculous.
“Was mean,” I admit. “Maybe still be, sometimes. But… want new… feathers.”
One of his smaller hands moves to stroke the feathers woven into my thick red braid.
“New feathers beautiful,” he croons. “You choose new feathers inside. Good.”
The Witch would have laughed in my face and told me I would fail.
But not Szhe’ka. He understands my need to change and believes I will. Considering how much time he’s spent with the Bitch, it’s surprising.
Very few human men would ever take that chance. Finding one of them would have been just as unlikely as getting abducted and ending up here with this odd male.
Sometimes I don’t really understand him. He’s equal parts depressed and insistent to get me to safety. My mind wants to gallop in fifty different directions about how terrible that combination might end up being, but I clamp down and focus on just how nice it is to be held.
How nice it is to be focused on, and not for what I can give, or the vicarious experience I can provide, or the notoriety he could gain from being around me… but just a soothing companionship.
It’s quiet now and there’s nothing else to fill the void.
For the first time in my life, I take the chance to tell someone the story of my life. I hand him the knife comb and instruct him how to unbraid and run it through my hair so I didn’t have to look at him while I speak.
The thing about being such a damaged person and deciding to let someone else in on the things that plague me is that it takes courage. Back on Earth, something like this can only be coaxed out of me when I get to the bottom of a bottle but there is no liquid courage here, just the beautiful flame dancing against our skin and that is more than enough for me.
Before I start to speak, I think about what my therapist would say to this, and all I can hear is the echo of her voice, telling me that it’s about time I let someone in. My heart hammers in my chest and I decide to switch to the protection and speed of Azoeul’s language to talk about the moment my life changed forever.
The story takes me deep into my memories.
I was so very young the first time I understood what my mother expected me to trade.
It was a Friday night. I was dressed for a school dance, smoothing down a dress I already thought was too short. When I came downstairs, my mother was in the living room with a man old enough to be her father. He wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at me.
Both of them turned. His eyes moved slowly over my legs. I remember thinking I had told her the dress was wrong.
