The Boy and His Ribbon (The Ribbon Duet, #1)(28)

But I didn’t mind.

I never minded when he didn’t return my affection because he loved me in other ways.

I was his, and he was mine, and through that bond, I felt things he never said aloud.

I mean, just the way he looked at me?

Wow, I wish I could draw instead of just write so you could see what I saw and feel what I felt.

The way Ren looked at you made you suffer beneath his expectation and glow beneath his praise. He touched you deeper than any hand could reach. He affected you harder than any spoken word ever could.

He cared with his entire soul and committed with entire being.

I might have been raised differently from so many kids. I might have missed out on things and probably lived through events that others would baulk at, but I was luckier than anyone because I had Ren.

I was never lacking for love.

I never felt unwanted or hurt or scared.

He was my entire universe, and he treated me like I was his in return.

Walking with bare ice-block feet toward a hay bale, he placed me down and commanded me not to move. I kicked my little legs and plucked prickly grass from beneath me and nodded with solemn promise to obey.

Muttering something under his breath, he left for a second but returned from another stall with a dinged up metal bucket. With a stern look, he entered the stall with the hay-chowing dairy cow and squatted down beside her.

“She’s bruised from too much milk.” His voice carried through the hushed barn. “She’s wandered from her herd and hasn’t been milked in days.” His strong hands latched around her teats, and I hopped from my ordered spot to tiptoe closer.

Like I said, everything Ren did was magic.

Watching him milk a cow with strong sure pulls made my mouth fall open in awe. Hearing the slosh of fresh milk land in the pail made my tummy gurgle and thirst spring from nowhere. And bearing witness to that cow as Ren took away her uncomfortably full udder and left her empty and eating made me realise that Ren didn’t just care for me with the fierce passion I recognised in his eyes.

Nope, he cared that way for every creature.

Every mammal, reptile, and beast.

He would bend over backward to protect, tend, and soothe.

But never humans.

Never people.

I was the one exception.

And that made me special…just like him.





CHAPTER SIXTEEN





REN



2005




I WANTED TO do something special for her.

I had no clue when her birthday was, or mine for that matter, but they fell sometime around summer. So far, we’d had a couple of weeks of perfect sunny weather, and I figured it was close enough to celebrate.

This time of year was the hardest for me.

Winter kept me grateful for the farmhouse we’d borrowed for the past few years, but summer made me hate it.

All I wanted to do was burn it to the ground and run away from its ashes.

The packed and ready-to-leave backpack mocked me for not having the guts to grab it and return to the life that lived and breathed in my soul.

If it was just me, I would have vanished the moment the nights turned shorter and the days became warmer, but it wasn’t just me.

It hadn’t just been me for four long years.

And although I felt trapped some days, although life would’ve been easier and simpler alone, I would never trade the little girl who trailed beside me as I guided her into town.

She blinked up at me, her blue ribbon tied in her hair today, keeping blonde curls from her eyes. Summer always made the blonde turn almost white, and her blue sparkling eyes seemed to grow in wisdom every day.

“Why we here, Ren?” she asked in her soft, childish voice. She glanced fugitively at the shoppers around us, some with supermarket bags and others with gift shop junk in their arms.

I hadn’t taken her into town in almost a year.

We had no need to, and I preferred to stay as far away from these people as possible to avoid any disruption to our invisible world on their fringes.

But today was special.

And I wanted to do something special. If that meant something out of the ordinary and something we’d never done before, then I was prepared to do whatever it took to make this day stand out.

“It’s our birthday.” I squeezed her small hand in mine. “I think we deserve to eat something that we don’t have to skin and scrub first, don’t you?”

She slammed to a stop. “It’s my birthday?”

Pulling her into the shadows of a bookstore—the same store where I’d stolen the books we’d studied and learned from—I nodded. “Yours and mine. Or at least…we’ll pretend it is.” I shrugged. “I don’t know the exact dates but figured we should at least celebrate something.”

A giant smile cracked her face. “We’ll have cake like that TV show did when it was their birthday?”

“If you want.”

“With candles and balloons?”

“Probably not.”

Her face fell, then instantly brightened. “I don’t care. This is the best day ever.” She danced on the spot, her hair and ribbon bouncing. “Oh, wait…” She studied me, deadly serious. “How old are we?”

I fought the urge to tug her golden curls and pulled her back into walking. “Not sure but I was ten when I ran, and you were about one or something, according to the news reporter in the town I left you.”