Freshwater(35)

“I don’t know what it’ll take,” she told me, when we were both standing in the marble room. “Therapy, probably. But I can’t do this anymore. I need you gone.”

I was manifesting strongly that day, wearing her face, but with sharper cheekbones and fuller lips. Saint Vincent watched us with his eyelids drooping.

Ada twisted her hands. “I’m trying to do what’s best for me,” she said.

“What do you think I’ve been doing this whole time?” I snapped. “What do you think I was doing when I came through Soren’s window in the first place?” I watched as she winced and looked away. “You see? It’s like you’re forgetting I’m the only one who protected you.”

“I’m trying to protect myself now,” she said, and I did a double take.

“From who?” I was starting to see red, the mother color crawling over my eyes. “From me? You want to protect yourself from me?” I didn’t realize I had stepped forward until she backed away. Vincent sat up, purple shadows under his eyes.

“As?ghara, she didn’t mean it like that.”

I took another step until my mouth was by Ada’s ear. I was taller than her, stronger than her. “Of course not. How can? When I’ve been the one holding her together? She can’t have meant it like that. She would have to be mad to say something that fucking stupid.”

Ada’s eyes were filling with angry tears. “I’m not stupid,” she bit out, and she sounded like a child filled with hurt.

I cupped her face in my hand and my fingernails were golden against her skin.

“Of course not,” I said, softening my voice. “But you’re not a fighter, Ada. All these men just want to fuck you, and it’s my job to be there. Allow me to be strong for you.” I leaned my forehead against hers, but Ada pulled away.

“You weren’t strong enough to ever say no,” she said, and if she had said it gently, it would have been one thing, but she said it with cruelty and she sounded like me. I stepped back and tasted fresh anger inside my mouth.

“Fuck you,” I said. “You know who I am, you know what I have to do. I don’t have a choice.”

“Are you mad? I’m the one without a choice!” Ada shoved me and I staggered back. “Not you, me! You’re just selfish!”

“Me, selfish? I’m doing all of this for you.”

“Oh my god.” Ada put her hands over her face and paced around the marble. “You don’t do it for me, As?ghara, you do it because you like it.”

I stared at her. “What?”

“I was there too, remember? Itohan’s older brother?” She turned back to face me. “You enjoyed hurting him, even though he didn’t do anything to us. You thought it was funny.”

I looked at the contempt on her face and felt myself calming. What was I doing, begging a human not to banish me from flesh? As if she could even do it. I walked away and sat down next to Vincent, then I tried to reason with the girl.

“Everything we do is a weapon, Ada, you get it? You think no one has ever seen our pain and laughed before? Don’t be ridiculous. They do it to us, we do it to them. Simple.”

Saint Vincent loosened the collar of his shirt and lit a cigarette. He smelled like Ewan. Ada leaned against the wall and folded her arms.

“I don’t need to do that anymore,” she said. “I don’t need you anymore.”

“Is that so?” I narrowed my eyes against the smoke from Vincent’s mouth. “Who will you need now? Yshwa, the one who gives you nothing?”

Ada glared at me and I took the cigarette from Vincent. He walked over to her, pulling her into his arms.

“As?ghara loves you,” he said, as if I couldn’t hear him. “She just doesn’t want to leave you alone.”

I threw my middle finger up at them and blew a veil of smoke in front of my face. Ada shook her head at me.

“You’re hurting people I love, don’t you understand?” she said. “I can’t just fold my hands and watch you do it.”

“You’re doing this for them?” I put out the cigarette. Maybe she didn’t understand. “They deserved it, Ada. All of them deserved it for what we went through.”

“Come on, that’s not true,” she said. “Even the ones who didn’t have anything to do with it? Even the innocent ones?”

When I heard her say that, something broke inside me.

“Were we not innocent?” I shouted, my voice slamming against the marble and splintering it. Cracks ran through the walls and ceiling, and Ada and Vincent froze where they were standing. All I could see was the mother color. “Were we not innocent enough to be spared?!”

They continued staring at me.

“No? Okay then, so tell me, why should I spare them?”

The room fell silent and I saw Vincent’s tears first, but I didn’t realize I was crying until Ada came up to me and wiped my face gently. “I didn’t realize. I’m so sorry,” she whispered, as if she wasn’t the victim. “I’m so sorry they hurt you too.”

I didn’t want her pity. “I’m not going anywhere,” I told her, pulling away from her hands. What could she do? I was stronger than her; this marble was my realm more than it was hers. So I made myself bigger and bigger, and she was saying something but her voice was small and tiny, and I was pressed up against the walls of her mind, growing and growing until she was a dot in a corner and I couldn’t hear her voice anymore.