Page 41 of Romancing in Rot

Sometimes it wears a familiar face.

Mom watches Jacob and Lyla before turning to me. “You’re staring.”

I sign, “Just happy for him.”

And a little jealous.

Mom hums, soft and knowing.

Of course she knows.

I pull a box of arrows from the shelf and check each shaft. Straight. No warping. No cracks. The cardboard is damp at the corners from the cold leaking through the broken windows, and my fingers are stiff enough that every movement takes more focus than it should.

Mom steps closer, her voice dropping. “You took Clair into town the other day.”

Not a question.

I nod once and keep checking the arrows.

Don’t look at her.

Do. Not. Blush.

“She’s in her own head,” Mom says. “Been there awhile, from what I can tell.”

I shrug. I pull a blade from the rack and test the edge with my thumb. A nick pierces my skin. Clair second-guesses everything. Every step. Every swing. Every choice. The voices are always there.

Not hers.

Given to her.

Mom leans against the shelf beside me. “You know what that kind of thinking does to a person.”

I do.

After the accident, after waking up with my throat ruined and my parents gone, I learned what it meant to have words trapped inside with nowhere to go. I learned how anger turns inward when it can’t get out. How guilt can make a home in your ribs. How silence can feel like a cage, even when no one else can see the bars.

My hands move before Mom can say anything else.

“She thinks she’s weak.”

The sharpness leaves Mom’s face. “Yeah,” she says, quieter now. “I figured.”

“She’s not.”

Mom lets out a small breath, almost a laugh. “No. She’s not.” She shifts, arms crossing as she studies me. “But she’s not going to believe that just because you tell her.”

I know.

Clair has to feel it. Has to learn where fear lives in her body and how to move anyway. But there is another part of it too, one I can’t train out of her with a crowbar and patience.

Poppy.

Every time Clair freezes, I see it. Not just fear for herself. Fear of what happens to her daughter if she fails.

That kind of fear can save you.

It can also pin you in place.