hesitates, and then nods, giving me a smile. "Tonight."
MARI
God, I really want to talk to someone.
More than anything, I want to talk to T'chai—my other half—but this is the one topic we can't ever seem to agree on. Someone other than T'chai. After we finish our walk on the beach, I take my time heading back to the Ravenclaw cave, as Callie calls it. Working on cleaning the scavenged parts free of salt and grit usually helps me focus. It's a mindless stream of never-ending work, but I actually enjoy it because it lets me think about other things. Most days, Callie joins me, but I know today she's going to be watching the beach games. All of the tribe's going to be there, I think, and I'm not entirely surprised when I see Mardok has turned the lights off in the cave and put his tools away. No doubt they're going to watch the games, too.
I guess that means I should go, too, but something inside me is reluctant to do so. Maybe it's the fact that I don't feel like we belong, T'chai and I. We're “flawed” and I feel like we no longer fit in with the group. They all stare at us when we get together. One on one, I think the tribesfolk are great. But in a big group, everyone watches us and it makes me antsy.
It's like they're all waiting to hear us resonate again, and I know it won't happen.
I know that just as surely as I know how wrong my cootie feels in my chest. It hasn't felt like “mine” since Veronica turned it off. And I know her turning it off was my choice…
But it doesn't change the fact that it's fucked everything.
I see everyone gathering on the beach, and Lauren is there with the thick of them, her mate K'thar's weird-looking bird perched on her shoulder. Other than Callie, I'm closest to Lauren, but I don't want to pull her away from the fun. I guess I'll just stew silently…alone.
Farli races into the Ravenclaw cave and pauses at the sight of me. "Oh. I did not realize you wished to work this day, Mar-ee. The others are going to watch the games. You should come." She beams me a brilliant smile, all happiness and light. Farli is pure joy in human—or alien—form, and it's easy to see why Mardok adores her so. She's strong and capable but utterly sweet and always smiling. I envy her.
"I don't think I'll watch," I admit. "I think I'll just stay here…by myself."
"Alone?" She picks up her light fur wrap—probably the reason she returned—and pauses in the entrance to the cave. "Are you well, Mar-ee? You look unhappy."
I fight the urge to go and hide under the nearest table. God, am I going to do girl talk with Farli? Farli who poops rainbows and smiles sunshine? But I desperately want to talk to someone. "I have a problem, Farli," I blurt out, moving to my normal seat and collapsing there. "Everything's all wrong."
She immediately comes and sits beside me, and puts her fur cloak on my shoulders, tucking me in like one would a child. "Is it something I can help with? Speak it and I will do whatever it takes to make it right."
That's so…nice. I fight the urge to cry, because crying hasn't done any good, and I've cried a lot in the last few months. "I just…" I turn to her, scanning her strange alien face. Her features are more pronounced than T'chai's, her color darker. Her horns are different and she has the plated nose of the sa-khui. She's still beautiful, just very alien. "My khui is all wrong, Farli." The words come out in a whisper. "And no one can fix it."
She clucks her tongue in a motherly way, which is kind of hilarious given the fact that she's maybe twenty and younger than me. "Because the healer silenced it, yes?"
I nod, and then the tears come out anyhow, and I weep on her bony shoulder as I tell her about the terrible choice I made. That I could have left T'chai's distracted khui alone and hoped that it would heal him and risk his death, or have Veronica silence our resonance so his khui could focus on healing him. "He'd been so sick for weeks and weeks, Farli," I whimper, all snot and tears. "And I felt like I couldn't choose that. I had to help his khui, you