Chapter Fourteen: To Go Back | Part 4
They stared each other down for a long moment. Seerla’s face remained stoic, but another surge in the flame’s height betrayed her mounting frustration. Finally, she nodded and walked past Thirtyx, toward the trail. “Okay, then.”
A pleasant tingle rolled down Thirtyx’s back as the dragonfire passed by. He let her go about 8 paces before he said, “Okay then what?”
“You don’t want your friends sacrificing for you. You don’t want us to be put out. That’s fine. I’ll just head back to school and forget you ever existed.”
Thirtyx rolled his eyes. “Seerla—”
“No! If you don’t want friends who actually care about you, you don’t get friends. So, if you go back to Wydewood, I’ll be cordial in our shared classes and in Service Club, but no more note sets. No more study sessions. No more library chats. You can’t have your cake and eat it too—not that that analogy works for you.”
“Look, I’m not really in the mood for sarcasm right—”
“Then look me in the eye and tell me you wish I didn’t come back for you.”
When she turned to face him, her expression had shifted from stoic to exaggeratedly patient. Several agonizing fracs passed in which Thirtyx realized she wouldn’t take his silence as an answer. She had a nice warm dragonfire and would happily stand there all night to make him say it.
He decided to end the torture rather quickly. “I’m glad you came back for me.”
“You need me,” she said almost before he’d finished speaking. “You need Rhea, and you need Benn—just like literally every other being on this planet needs someone. And would it kill you to entertain the idea that Rhea and Benn and… and I might need you too?”
Thirtyx gritted his teeth. “Sorry if I find it hard to believe that you all need someone who’s such a massive liabil— okay, wait, wait, Seerla, I’m sorry.”
She’d taken five more steps before he managed to stop her this time, and when she spun around, all traces of patience had vanished from her face. “Do you honestly think the literal prince and princess would have stuck around you so long if you were useless to them? You think they defend you the way they do out of pity? And for the Twins’ sake, Thirtyx, I get to decide if you’re too much of a liability in my life, not you.”
After several moments of gaping at her, Thirtyx breathed a heavy sigh. “What was that you were saying about my superior rhetoric skills?”
“I said that to flatter you, and I think you know that.”
“They could come after you. Try to kill you next. Why do you think I’m worth it?”
“Because I’m going to rewrite the legal codes to defend people like us, and I felt way less empty when you gave me hope that I wouldn’t be doing it alone.”
Thirtyx cracked the shadow of a smile. “We have to be alive to change the legal codes, you know.”
“Point taken.” She walked back toward him, and Thirtyx suppressed a tremor of relief when the fire came near again. “And… while I would be selfishly disappointed if you didn’t come back to Wydewood, I’d understand. I don’t want to pressure you. I just don’t want you making that choice based on some stupid imagined obligation to protect your friends. Making that choice to save your skin, though… there’s no shame in that.”
Calley Jones 