The Invisible Planet

Part 41: Enough

Content Warning: This chapter contains graphic content.

The forest was dark compared to the light of the fire. It took Angeline's eyes a few moments to adjust.

"Shay!" she called.

No response. Was she too late?

She looked around and then continued forward at a light jog. Blue and white flowers dimly lit the path.

"Why're you here?" asked Shay, slurring his words just slightly.

She turned with a start to see him leaning against a wide tree, holding the last bit of an Aobana fruit in his hand. The answer to his question eluded her. What could she say? That she was following him? That the sight of him with Flora made her whole chest ache? That even Aster had noticed her feelings for him?

"Go back to— snogging whatever his name is," he grumbled, taking another bite of the fruit.

"Well, why aren't you with Flora?" she countered, crossing her arms.

He wrinkled his nose in disgust. "Why would I be with Flora?"

"You were certainly enjoying letting her hang all over you earlier."

"Is that what you thought?" he asked, almost offended. "That I was enjoying the company of a woman with all the competence and personality of a brick?" He huffed in annoyance. "Do you know what she said to me, entirely unprompted?"

"What?"

"She said you look plain." He took another bite, chewing as she shifted uncomfortably.

She had never been the pretty one in a room. Flora was right.

"No one even asked," Shay continued. "The epitome of Midelian beauty standards, the woman who looks like she walked off an advertisement for an overpriced skincare product, said you look plain. I could have knocked her pompous head right off her shoulders."

It was all she could do to keep from grinning. "You don't think she's pretty?"

He rolled his eyes. "I'm not blind. She's quite beautiful, but the way she thinks that entitles her to everyone else's... everything — like we should all be enthralled with her for existing, and bend over backwards for her every whim — makes me want to launch her back into space without a ship. She uses her beauty in lieu of anything else that might make someone attractive. She's not clever or well learned, she pointlessly laughs at things that aren't funny because she thinks she's being cute, and she has no care or compassion for anyone but herself. It makes me sick. So, no, I was not enjoying her hanging all over me. I was looking for an excuse to get away from her." He finished the last bite of the fruit.

Angeline smiled.

"What are you so happy about?" he asked sourly. "You've no right to be jealous after the way you were sitting in his lap, kissing him like that in front of everyone."

She made a face at him, tightening her crossed arms. "You rejected me, remember?"

His eyes lowered toward the ground. "I told you I can't love you the way you deserve, and I meant that. The fact of the matter is, you can be with me for the rest of your days, but I can't be with you for mine. One day you'll look at me the way Tam did. You'll age and wither the way humans do, and eventually you'll realize you'd rather be alone than spend another day with a walking reminder of your mortality. I can't fall asleep with you at night. I can't give you children. I can't marry or grow old with you. You deserve all of those things and so much more, but I..." he paused, closing the distance between them to take her cheek in his hand. "By all the stars, I am nothing if not selfish. I want every second you have left and an eternity more, and it still won't be enough."