Page 151 of Halfling
“Those aren’t the actions of a man who means to be away,” he said.
But Sorcha was unmoved, her bitterness curling her lip, and eventually Connor retreated.
She let the fire he made go out.
When her mother asked if she would come down to dinner, she was silent.
When her father asked if she would please come out and let him see her, she was silent.
When Keeley begged her to please come and let her read her a story, she was silent.
Because Sorcha had nothing to say. What could she?
He’s left.
Oh, surely he had his reasons, yes. He’d fought off that orc, defended them all from a threat they’d known nothing about. He must think there was more danger, that somehow he thought he could stop it.
Sorcha didn’t care about his reasons—he left me.
After all his promises, all his assurances that mates were for life. He came back to her that night knowing he would leave her.
Liar.
And she’d let herself believe that it would be different. That he would finally be the one to stay, because she wanted it enough, wantedhimenough. She’d known his integration into life here was difficult, she knew he struggled to find his place, but she’d thought…
I’d finally started to believe that I would be enough.
Angry as she was with him, for his stupid noble heroics, for wanting to protect her and her family, for making her believe him—she was angrier at herself for letting him.
She should have known better.
Nobody ever stays.
On the next day, her mother lingered as thin afternoon light eked in from the window. At first, Aoife had agreed to give Sorcha and her heartbreak time, but today she seemed determined to rouse her daughter from bed.
She tried stripping the bedding, but Sorcha lay resolutely, unmoving.
“Sorcha,” her mother huffed, “you have to get up. I know it hurts, but life still needs to be lived.”
That bitterness throbbed inside her, peeling her lip back from her dry teeth to sneer at her mother. Aoife jerked back as if Sorcha had slapped her.
“I’m sorry someone else has to do all the fucking chores,” she growled.
Aoife blinked down at her for a long moment, face gone wan. “That’s not what I meant.”
Sorcha merely grunted, not believing her. She rolled to her other side, giving Aoife her back.
She heard her mother moving around the room, and for a long while all she did was clean and fold, forcing her presence on Sorcha when all she wanted was to be left alone. Her pain was easier to bear hidden away in her room.
“How do you do it?” The words slipped past her lips, sharp as darts and just as stinging. “How can you stand being abandoned over and over again?”
Because I can’t. I won’t.
The bed dipped as Aoife sat. A warm, dry hand ran up and down Sorcha’s arm in a soothing rhythm, and she was far too tempted to give in to the comfort.
Tears, dredged up from somewhere deep in the chasm of her heart, burned her eyes.
When she heard a muffled sob, at first she thought it’d escaped her own throat, but then Sorcha realized with horror that it was her mother crying. She looked on in alarm, the sight of her mother weeping jolting her out of her numb daze.
