Defect - By Ryann Kerekes Page 0,79
living in a spare room at Kai’s for the past several months. I pretend not to notice the way he looks at me while I’m cooking, or when I emerge from the bathroom scrubbed pink with still-damp hair, or the way he silently grins when I hum to myself. A habit that I unfortunately picked up from Sage.
A lot had changed in the six months I’d been living at the outpost. The most significant being that I knew with certainty Will wasn’t coming. My heart had sealed itself off, all hope abandoned. I’d earned a spot amongst my new people, even if I still didn’t feel like one of them – I was a contributing member, something Sage insisted upon. I rejected many of the things she thought were women’s work – cooking and gardening and instead helped build houses and went on hunting expeditions with the men, thanks to my passable aim and skill with weapons due to Will’s lessons.
Living with Kai, I’d also begun to help with some of his duties as healer. I’d seen him birth a baby, treat countless bumps and minor contusions, and say a last blessing for a dying man when nothing more could be done.
Thankfully my days were filled with activity and work. It was enough of a distraction that I could carry on, even if it wasn’t fully living. But nights…nights were a different story. The moon taunted me, its gorgeous bluish light beckoning me to remember evenings with Will, or in lesser instances, my mother.
The fragrant springtime breeze through the open window lulls me into remembering my time spent in the meadow with Will, my sore muscles from the manual labor always a reminder of my time at the compound. They say that time heals all wounds, but I’ve found that’s a farce. I am not healed. Numb, maybe. Time makes you numb to the pain, but it doesn’t make you forget.
When I rise in the morning, grumpy after another restless night, Kai is packing his bag in the small kitchen. He looks me over, still dressed in my bedclothes, which consist of an old t-shirt of his. His gaze lingers at my bare thighs where the shirt stops and his lips part as he pulls in a shuddering breath. I don’t mind Kai looking at me. I know he’s kind and good-natured. I know he deserves love and desires a good woman, but I also know that I am not that woman. After a second his eyes snap back up to mine and his hands continue stuffing various implements into his bag. “Elliot is sick. Do you want to come with me?” he asks.
Elliot is a toddler and easily my favorite person here. He doesn’t know about my past, he doesn’t care about my tattoo or the jagged scar on my wrist, he just accepts me. Besides time with him guarantees a distraction. “Sure. Just let me change.”
Kai nods and finishes packing his bag while I go to my room to change. My clothes are secondhand pieces from the women and even some of the children, since I never gained back the weight I lost on the journey here. I slip a soft cotton shirt over my head, and step into a pair of jeans. Both knees are shredded, but it doesn’t matter to me. They’re comfortable.
When Kai and I set off, we see a group of men returning to the outpost at the edge of the woods. Kai points. “They’re back.” They pull a heavy sled laden with supplies and large backpacks bounce on each of their backs. It appears their journey was successful. That will mean more antibiotics, supplies, dehydrated foods and critical tools. I never knew that trade existed between those on either side of the fence. It was just another thing the capital didn’t want us to know. Cooperation and humanity still exists, even if they liked to pretend it doesn’t.
We reach the little cottage, and Kai taps lightly on the door, then pushes it open. He’s close friends with Elliott’s parents. They’re actually not much older than we are. Eli is eighteen, like Kai, and Fern is twenty. Before Eli moved here a few years ago, Fern and Kai were a couple, and I can tell by the way Kai looks at her that he wishes they still were. But Kai is never bitter. He doesn’t have a vindictive bone in his body.
We enter the front room and Fern stands to greet us, pressing a