Page 71 of Cost of Courting

She stares at me.

“You don’t tell anyone about this. You don’t do anything. But if you haven’t seen me in a week, you deliver those letters, and you walk away like you never knew me.”

“Selene, we can get you help-”

“Tiff, you grew up here in this neighbourhood. You know that’s not the way this works.”

Tiff’s concern brings tears to her eyes, and that’s why I chose this person. She will take this seriously. She will care enough to see it through.

I push up and pull up my hood. “I’m going to go. But keep those letters hidden, and don’t tell anyone. Remember: one week.”

Tiff impulsively hugs me.

I hug her back and then walk back home. When I get there, I look across the road. The lights are still off.

They stay off for another three days.

When I see the car and the lights on in the middle of the night, I stare long and hard. No one comes over, no one comes to say thank you or anything. Hope turns into bitterness which leaves me in a squall of despair until I can’t stand to look at that light a moment longer.

I go outside and climb up onto the roof, lying there looking at the clouds.

I can’t sleep. I haven’t been sleeping much lately. It’s their fault, and I absolutely blame them.

Why haven’t they come to find me?

When dawn comes and they still haven’t decided to come over, I get ready for my day and ignore the hurt that is flooding my system.

It’s my own fault. I’ve been telling them all this time to leave me alone. Now I’m upset that they are listening to me? How ridiculous.

I go down to Mrs Farrows and get stuck into the yard work, clearing the weeds from her garden. She sits on the porch and talks up a storm while feeding me glass after glass of lemonade and biscuits that melt in my mouth. Her hands are twisted into painful claws, but she’s the sweetest lady I’ve ever met.

“Need a hand?”

I look up straight into the sun. Well, the person who is kind of blocking the sun. I can’t see their face, but I know it’s Kingston.

“I’ve got it.”

He huffs, comes into the yard, and kneels down beside me and starts pulling up plants.

“We were looking for you.”

“Were you?” I say nonchalantly. “Sorry, I assumed you were busy with your omega.”

“We were, but we were still wanting to see you.”

I nod my head, trying not to cry because what he’s saying is hurting me.

“Well, here I am, as usual, getting jobs down. What can I do for you?”

“Selene,” Kingston murmurs. He growls and looks back. “Excuse me, Mrs Farrows, I’m just going to borrow our Selene for a minute.”

He drags me up and around the back of the house and to the playground that’s been in her backyard for fifteen years. He picks me up and sets me on the weather-warped wood and walks between my legs.

“Selene.”

“What?”

“You should have stayed with us. We needed you. He kept calling for you.”