Page 99 of Why Cheese?
Pinching the bridge of his nose, Roq sighs. “After the first day, I woke confused and naked in the center of town. The feast was over. I missed it completely. It was quite a long time before I figured out what price I paid. I thought it was only mine to pay, until…”
“You ate the cheese you weren’t supposed to,” I say, struggling to make sense of this. “Oh shit, just like Cam. And Cheddy. And Brie!”
“That seems to be the only link between us all. I don’t know how or why it chose them. I kept to my caves, spoke to no one for centuries. I thought I’d die alone and forgotten, but every night I return to who I was when I took that first bite. Well…aside from a few changes.” Raking his fingers through his blue hair, he snorts. “Now you know the truth. All of you. I’m a liar. I’m a cheater. I thought myself better than everyone else who’d tried their hand at cheesemaking. I’m a self-centered monster who should be banished to the dark recesses of the caves from whence he came.”
“No, you’re not.”
I’m just as shocked as Roq to find my hand resting on his shoulder and those words flying from my lips.
He glares at me but doesn’t shy away from my touch. “You don’t know me, girl.”
“I know that you look out for them. You protect them as best as you can. That’s not what a monster would do.”
“They wouldn’t be in this situation if not for me releasing this evil cheese into the world. I don’t know how or if I can contain it. Cure it. Fix any of my mistakes. They’re going to hate me forever.”
The big, scary Roq crumples into his lap with his hands on his head. He moans over the thought of losing his friends, the only people he can count on. The pain knotting up his body kicks me in the heart.
I scoot so close, I’m almost sitting on him. Draping one arm behind his back, I reach for the hands cradling his face. “When I was eleven I had a babysitter. She was so bubbly and sweet that I thought she was a princess. She kept her beautiful black hair in a perfect ponytail. I loved it so much, I’d always tell her how pretty it was, and that I wanted one too.”
Why am I telling him this? Why am I talking about it? I’m not supposed to talk about it. Mother’s going to be so mad.
I clamp my nails to my arm to dig in, but Roq intercepts my hand. He winds his fingers with mine and pulls me from the never-healing wound. “Then what happened?”
“I grabbed a pair of scissors and cut it off. She spun around and screamed and screamed in horror while I held her hair. I knew it was wrong. I didn’t want to, but I had to.”
He’s going to hate me just like she does, just like all of my classmates when they found out. Just like everyone in this world. Even before they meet me they hate me.
“Why?”
Why did I do it?
Don’t say anything, you worthless trash. He’ll freak out. Run away. Get eaten by pigeons. It’ll be all your fault.
“There are these thoughts. They blast in my head night and day screaming things at me. Cut off her hair. Cut it off now.”
Lock the door five times. If you don’t, the house will burn down. Everyone will die because of you.
“I know they’re in my head, that the gremlin isn’t real. I can fight them, I do, but it gets so exhausting day in and day out. Sometimes it’s easier to just…let them win.” Tears tumble down my cheeks. I try to shake them off, but they only fall faster. “I’m a coward. A failure.”
Pain throbs up my chest like my ribcage snaps and bones collapse around my heart. I bend over to protect my worthless organ, to hide it, knowing that as much as I wish it were otherwise, it’s trash. “No one can love me.”
“That’s not true.”
Roq tugs me up from my crumple. Without pause, he wraps his arms around me. I pin to his side in a strange hug as he burns through every one of my protective layers. “Brie is beyond enamored with you. He speaks of you with a vigor I’ve never seen for anyone or anything else.”
“He doesn’t know me.”
“Or perhaps you don’t understand how vast your heart is. You gave him his passion. I didn’t even know about the paints or I’d have… I didn’t think to ask, but you did.”
“That doesn’t mean anything.” So I asked him one question and he answered it. That doesn’t fix me.
“What of Chedward then?”
I laugh. “He loves everyone.”
“True. He is such an open book I find pages scattered everywhere he goes.” Roq shakes his head and a small chuckle rumbles up his chest.
“But he knows,” I whisper to myself. “He…caught on to me locking the door. Asked me about it.”
