After a lazy weekend stuck inside because of the storm, I went to work on Monday amongst the lingering drizzle. Despite doing my best not to think, my mind buzzed, unwanted thoughts sneaking up on me if I dared relax for a second.

As much as I wanted to pretend it hadn’t happened, Hyraj had confessed to me. It wasn’t that I was disgusted by it or anything, but… I felt uneasy. It was, like, me? Really? As nice as it had felt at the time to hear her say she “preferred” me, I couldn’t bring myself to believe it now. Even if I didn’t know what women looked for in other women, I knew I wasn’t the prettiest, wasn’t that clever, couldn’t really cook, not that good at cleaning and washing clothes without stuff like a dishwasher and washing machine. Like, you had to be really strong to carry wet clothes! I could barely manage with just the travel clothes we wore….

Anyway, you know, she was beautiful and clever and elegant, and her family were a really big deal? She didn’t exactly say her parents were upset she was gay, just upset that she wasn’t “normal”. Even in my world, I couldn’t think of any country having a gay prime minister or president or leader, so they didn’t seem super homophobic? She’d even said something like, “If only I had a sibling.” Like, if her parents didn’t want her to be the… Krinjor? Yeah, the Krinjor. If they didn’t want her to be the Krinjor, she wouldn’t have needed to run away, that they would have accepted her?

Reaching Mr Arl’s house, I took a deep breath and pushed away the pointless thoughts. Thinking about it did me no good.

It was a day like any other from there, Sisi chattering away as she tugged me along to the lounge. Almost like any other.

“Dida know my mama liked to read books?” Sisi asked, looking awfully serious with her narrowed eyes.

Only after a few seconds did I realise she was asking, “Did you…”. “She did?” I asked.

Sisi happily clapped her hands that way that meant “yes”. “Mm, papa said she liked romance stories.” More literally, it was “over-love” stories, but that was how genres were described here. Over-travel (adventure), over-fighting (action). Sounded weird to me at first, but our names were pretty weird too when I thought about it.

Didn’t matter. What mattered was… Mr Arl took my advice. Sisi just had fact after fact to share about her mum, like all they’d done over the weekend was talk about her—from the books she liked to where they met to how much she loved Sisi. Oh, Sisi said that with such a smug grin.

Listening to her, I knew she still very much had a mother, and I didn’t. That I never could. Even if the woman who gave birth to me appeared in front of me, nothing could make her my mother. That bond had broken, scabbed over, and left a scar. There was no place in my life for a mother, not her.

They weren’t sad thoughts, but I kept them to myself, my face showing nothing but interest in what Sisi had to say.

“And papa said mama ’ould be so happy to see my pretty hair,” Sisi said, mumbling into her shoulder as she turned her head—trying to see her hair? Reaching back, she pulled the little braid out from under her hat. “Papa tried, but Big Cousin said she can’t let me look like that? I don’t know, but then she did it, and it’s almost as nice as yours! Isn’t she good?”

My heart squeezed at that little compliment. “She’s very good,” I said.

Once Sisi had exhausted herself of “gossip”, we went into our usual things. Some games, some lessons, and she even brought up practising braiding. “Papa said we gonna see grandmama soon, so I want to show her I can braid my hair like mama.”

“Of course,” I said, smiling softly.

Those stories of her mum maybe kept her up late because, as the afternoon stretched on, she started to nod off until finally falling asleep. It wasn’t the first time she’d napped, not something Mr Arl minded, so I left her for now. Really, I could understand it. When the rain was just a drizzle like today, the world felt oh so quiet, calm. The sound of our breathing, the shuffle of Frinnef’s chair upstairs or the creak of her door, mixed with the perpetual twilight of an overcast sky, and a cosy warmth.

However, that just left me with my own thoughts.

Rather than carry on where I’d left off earlier, I ended up thinking about how open Hyraj had been with me, telling me such a personal story. I… hadn’t told her anything. Not really. Honestly, could I?

The stuff about my old world was maybe too much, but could I bring myself to tell her about the nights I’d spent silently crying, wishing someone would “rescue” me? The dull ache I felt when someone else was fostered or adopted, afraid to ask myself why it wasn’t me? I needed to be a good girl. Why would someone adopt a girl who broke all her things and screamed all the time… when they could have me?

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I was covered in scars, covered up my scars, afraid to scare away people who weren’t even interested in me to begin with. But now… if Hyraj really liked me, well, would she still like me when I wasn’t covered up?

After spending so long being unloved, I had just assumed it was because I couldn’t be. That, if she really did love me, then she was wrong. She had missed something everyone else had seen and she would also leave me once she saw what it was.

Living alone on the mountain… there hadn’t been any need to pretend. What I loved about that time was that no one had expectations of me. No, that was wrong. It was that I didn’t imagine what expectations other people had for me. I wasn’t trying to live up to the image I wanted them to have of me.

Then Hyraj came along and, while I struggled a bit at first, wanting her to think highly of me, we eventually settled into… this. It was different, it was the same. I still wanted to be helpful, but it was more about wanting to help her than make her think I was helpful. It wasn’t just me pouring myself out and getting nothing in return.

Back at the orphanage, I loved those kids. Maybe they loved me too. But it wasn’t the kind of love that supported me. It was… a crutch. Helped me get through the days. Helped me ignore my own pain.

The little things Hyraj did for me… meant so much. On the mountain, I was healing, but she helped me to stand up again. If she was only being nice to me because she liked me, so what? It would be great if everyone in the world could be nice to everyone else all the time, but that wasn’t the world we lived in, neither of the worlds I’d lived in.

It was fine if she was only being nice to me because she liked me. Just that… it meant she might not keep being nice if she didn’t like me.

Letting out a sigh, I looked away from Sisi, turned to the rain drops racing down the window. I didn’t want things to change. I didn’t want to open up my old wounds. More than that, though, I didn’t want to take her “love” for granted. I didn’t want to be a child who naively accepted all her love and never made an effort to return it.

Thinking of that, I smiled to myself. Maybe I could just pretend. There wasn’t the same sort of reaction like with Mr Arl where I knew I couldn’t marry him. With Hyraj… would things be so bad? I probably wasn’t going to get married anyway. And I did love her—not the same way she loved me, but how comfortable I felt with her….

Well, it wasn’t a serious thought. I couldn’t lie to her like that.

My thoughts swirled, the rain drizzled, and it wasn’t long before Sisi stirred. Standing up, I went over to her and coaxed her out of her dreams. Back to work.

The afternoon passed and, before I knew it, Mr Arl returned. On my way out, he told me a little more of their moving plans. The date they were aiming for. And he said, “If Miss Louise did wish to move to Grahtkroustad, there would be a job for them.”

Facing the door, I smiled. “Miss Louise will be staying with Miss Hyraj for now.”

“I understand.”

The drizzle greeted me outside, warm and humid. I took a deep breath, then strode back to the place that, for now, I called home.

My heart seemed to beat quicker with every step. I was nervous, no, excited. Had to tell myself I was doing the right thing. Try to convince myself, otherwise I might have chickened out. So it wasn’t nerves, I was excited, so happy to finally open up to someone.

Of course, I still hesitated outside our door for a long moment, taking in a shaky breath, letting it out slowly.

Once I knocked, the sound of the chair scraping rang out, her footsteps, then the click of the door. A little song I’d come to know so well. Smiling at that thought, I looked up at her when she opened the door. She had her own smile. A second, then I realised why, all of a sudden feeling shy as a rush of heat went straight to my face. Looking down, I couldn’t keep off the awkward smile.

“Pleased you came back.”

Stepping into the room, I busied myself with taking off my coat. “Pleased to be back,” I mumbled, straightening out the creases to keep from fidgeting. When she was back in her seat, I let out a sigh of relief.

Nothing had changed, but I was so conscious of her gaze now, felt so… seen. It was always… gentle. Not like those men on the streets. Like, she looked at me, not my body. And that made me feel so awkward. Of all the people, I really wasn’t worth looking at. Nothing about my face was beautiful….

Falling into those thoughts, I caught myself. Not the time for self-hate. After taking a second to pull myself together, I went to help with dinner. My routine. And then, obviously, it was dinnertime, so we ate. Like always, in silence.

A loud silence. My heart pounded in my chest, definitely not nervous, but excited. I was… so excited I was going to open up to her. I was excited for her to know more about me. I was excited to see how disappointed she’d look after learning how shallow I was.

So very excited.

She always ate pretty quick, like her jaw was a machine that kept chewing at a steady pace. Today, though, I really lagged behind, only half done by the time she finished. Without the food for her to focus on, I noticed—felt—her gaze all the more. Not that she was staring at me, but she’d look around and our eyes would meet for a moment before she moved on. And my heart would squeeze, reminded of what I had planned, making the food in my mouth all the harder to swallow.

Three-quarters eaten, I gave up trying and stood up.

“Is something upsetting?”

I stilled, then carried on, trying not to look so tense… for what good it did. “No, it’s—let me take these first,” I said.

Her hand settled on top of mine. “Let me,” she said. It was both gentle and an order. I couldn’t argue, the words like a spell that made me leave the plates and sit down again. Only once she was out the room did I realise what had happened and laugh to myself.

She really did love me, and I had no clue how I missed the signs for so long.