The Poison Season(61)
When Sage turned her head toward Leelo, for a moment she felt like she was looking at her aunt instead of her cousin. “Of course I don’t have a say. Maybe, if you were the one getting married, I could have put it off for a while. But your mother would never expect you to marry someone like Hollis. She’s as impractical as you are, only thinking about feelings.” She swallowed thickly. “I was never hoping for love. But respect, admiration. Even attraction. I had hoped...” She broke off, and for the first time Leelo could remember, Sage began to openly weep. Full, hiccuping sobs that wracked her entire body. The sight of her cousin coming undone was unbearable.
Leelo curled up next to Sage, holding her tight, trying to keep her from falling apart, as if Sage might actually crumble from sorrow. And a part of Leelo wished that it was her getting married instead, that she could spare Sage from this fate somehow. That there really was some Endlan boy she had fallen for instead of an outsider.
Instead of the one boy she could never have.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Jaren waited the entire day after the festival—the evening that Leelo had kissed him, as he would always think of it, touching his fingers to his lips and wishing they were hers—for Leelo to come to him. She had mentioned having that day off from Watcher duty and, considering how clear she’d made her feelings for him, he had no reason to think she wouldn’t visit.
The hours in the cottage always passed slowly, but that day they dragged on interminably. No matter how hard he tried not to think of Leelo, tried not to think of her berry-sweet mouth and the feel of her body against his, he couldn’t seem to help himself. He’d hardly slept that night after she left, his mind spinning in a thousand directions, every nerve in his body aware and humming in a way he’d never experienced.
It wasn’t that he’d never been attracted to someone before. He was a young man; sometimes it felt like he was attracted to everything and everyone, whether he wanted to be or not. And yes, he had imagined what it would be like to someday be married to someone he loved, like his mother and father. But it had all been theoretical before.
Now it was thrillingly, dangerously real. And he didn’t know how he would make it another minute, another hour, another day without her.
As the daylight slanted through the windows of the cottage, moving with agonizing slowness across the floor until it had faded entirely, Jaren finally accepted that Leelo wasn’t coming. He told himself it had nothing to do with him; she’d had more chores than she realized, or, like him, she hadn’t slept last night and had overslept this morning. There were plenty of perfectly reasonable explanations for why Leelo hadn’t come. But his anxious mind insisted on conjuring more and more unreasonable explanations, mostly centered around her not liking him as much as he liked her.
By the morning of the third day, Jaren’s concerns had turned more practical. He’d been out of food since the first day, and now he was completely out of water, too. The interior of the cottage had grown musty in the humid summer heat, and Jaren knew he couldn’t put off bathing one more day. He couldn’t stomach his own stench, let alone imagine subjecting Leelo to it, if she ever returned.
He’d stripped down to his britches at some point yesterday. Redonning his reeking pants and tunic was a visceral experience he didn’t care to repeat. He grabbed the small knife Leelo had left for him and his empty waterskins, then headed into the woods.
Finally, Jaren admitted to himself that he was angry. Leelo knew he was completely dependent on her. It wasn’t his fault he was trapped on this island, that he had no way of finding the boat or fixing it. He liked being helpless as much as he liked being trapped in a hovel for days on end. Even if Leelo was mad at him for one of the thousand reasons his brain had conjured—the one he kept coming back to being that he was a terrible kisser—it was no excuse to leave him to starve to death.
He stewed the entire way to the pools, having imaginary conversations with Leelo, crafting the perfect thing to say when she finally did show up. He already knew he’d forgive her the moment he saw her. And deep down, he still believed there was a perfectly good explanation for this. He was being selfish, expecting too much of her. But anger was a more comfortable emotion than fear. Better to believe she was punishing him than that something bad had happened to her.
He was already stripped out of his filthy clothing when he reached the pools. With a quick glance around to make sure he was alone, he dropped into the water, relishing the feel of it on his sticky skin. Almost immediately, he began to feel less irritable.
He allowed himself a few minutes to soak, but he knew he couldn’t linger, even if Leelo was right and people rarely came here. Rarely wasn’t never. Naked, he climbed out of the pool and took his clothes downstream a way, not wanting to wash his clothes in water that might be used for bathing or drinking. Leelo had brought him a little chunk of soap to use on his body and clothing, and he gave himself a cursory sudsing before thoroughly scrubbing his tunic and pants and rinsing away the soap in the stream.
When he’d finished, he wrung the clothing out and laid it out on the rocks to dry, then filled his waterskins and glanced around for something to eat. He’d gotten so desperate yesterday that he’d picked a few petrified crumbs from the smashed strawberry cake off the blanket and sucked on them until they disintegrated. There were more berries now than the last time he’d been here, but he ate them as fast as he picked them, leaving himself with nothing for later.