Chapter 11: Guest, You Said

Tegan's POV

My arrow stayed on the string.

Rodrick stood at the bottom of the porch steps with one hand pressed to his side, and blood was coming through his fingers.

He didn't raise his hands.

He didn't tell me to put the bow down.

"You knew," I said again.

"Yes."

"Since when?"

"The Gathering. Four years ago."

My arms began to ache from holding the draw.

"Four years of mornings," I said. "You could have knocked on any one of them."

"Yes."

"You never did."

"I never did." His voice was rough.

It was the easiest thing in the world to hate him for it.

I wanted to.

I stood at the top of those steps with my fingers burning on the string.

I held the hate up to the light and looked at it.

"I was eighteen," I said. "I was a girl who sang in the kitchen."

"I don't remember a single song, and you stood by a fire and let it happen."

"I know."

"Say why."

"Because you looked happy," Rodrick said. "And I had no claim on you that you'd asked for."

"I thought, if I walk across that fire and tell an eighteen-year-old she belongs to me, I'm the second man to take something out of her hands."

I let the string go slack.

"That's a coward's reason."

"It is."

"It's also a decent one," I said, and I hated that too.

He swayed.

It was a small movement, one step to the left, but I saw the color leave his face.

I dropped the bow.

I was down the steps before I knew I had moved, and I caught him under the arm as his knee started to go.

He was heavy, and he was hot, and I could feel his blood soaking through my sleeve.

"Stupid," I said into his shoulder. "Stupid, stubborn, enormous man."

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