The anger was written across the lines of Ruth’s body. She could see the tension in his shoulders even from this distance. She remembered how it felt to put her hands on those shoulders and knead the knots out, punctuated by the sound of him sighing and relaxing into her hands.
She threw the thought out as quickly as it came to her. It felt too intimate, too comfortable for the circumstances she’d made for herself. She resisted the urge to shuffle beneath his eyes, forcing herself to stay stone still.
“In general, I don’t spend time wondering where you are,” she replied. It could’ve been sarcastic, but there was no malice in it; her tone was matter-of-fact. “That seemed like the best decision for the both of us.”
Nell didn’t want to fight him. She didn’t even want to talk to him, really, but they had a shared responsibility that she’d never had a chance to tell him about. Her own relationship with him was one thing, but Ruth deserved to have the option to know Ven. If she told him about their child, would he even believe her? He’d walked out on her before, when Ven had just been a whisper in her belly. She didn’t blame him for that one. In fact, Nell seemed to believe that the mistakes and burdens of their former relationship were hers to carry, and hers alone.
Although she couldn’t - wouldn’t - call Ven her son, she wouldn’t let him suffer from the cascading effects of her mistakes.
Ruth agreed to take her to her delivery. She nodded and followed after him, but she held herself at a distance. She watched the scholars pass them, wishing that she could disappear into the whirl of fabric and dust left in their wake.
She was quiet for a long time, following after Ruth. She wore her thumbs into the straps of her pack, mulling over her own anxiety until it spoke for her.
“Is your eye okay?”
10-07-2023, 10:58 PM
