7. Imogen

7

IMOGEN

" L over's quarrel?"

The hair on my neck stands on end at Silas's voice echoing down the hall. When I turn, he's there smirking, with his hands in his pockets and one leg perched against the wall.

I frantically wipe the few escaped tears from my cheeks and quickly make for the exit.

"Politely, Your Majesty," I seethe as I storm past him. "Fuck off."

His laughter bellows through the air, trailing me home. And like a ghost, it haunts my dreams that night.

It's the same scene, over and over again. Slightly different words may come out of Nora's mouth with each iteration of our fight, but they're all as hurtful as the truth. It's a varied verbal lashing, courtesy of my subconscious, that always ends the same: with a replay of Nora's eyes breaking with betrayal.

Those bottle-green irises crack before me, shards of sea glass scattering between us. They cut me with their disappointment.

Because she cared .

The realization hits me in the night, as I toss between sweat-soaked sheets and bouts of nightmares.

I rerun the exact moment she decided she wouldn't care anymore. The way the emotion drained from her features and hid away, taking shelter behind all the carefully constructed walls in her psyche. She retreated, started building those defenses back up far too easily. Much too fast.

She's not wrong to pull away. I know I fucked up, but I didn't even get a chance to explain. And then she left.

Everyone always leaves.

I tug the sheets up to my chin and burrow my face in the pillow. It's cold and wet under my cheek, having caught my stray tears. I wish for my brother, who used to hold me on nights like these, when the world became too much and things fell apart. But even he left me too.

He left and will never come home. Would Nora be the same?

Curling into myself under the covers, I pull my knees to my ribs, and I pray that sleep grants me mercy.