Anchors

I do love a man who reads. Even more so, I love a man who loves to read and yet looks up from his book to gaze at me.

Circumstances being what they are, Nathaniel and I have had little time to spend together or speak together since everything started to come apart at the seams here. Finally last night we managed to get a little time together and not spend it just falling asleep exhausted in one another’s arms. (Not to discount that: it’s very good, but it does not make for frank and honest communication.)

I spoke to him of my conversation with Alec, and he spoke to me of his conversation with Alec, and of his new bond with Maric. After speaking with him, I shall give Maric another chance, although his manner still makes me nervous and suspicious.

It seems that Nathaniel is now free to wander where he will; he spoke of worrying that perhaps he will think of his mother and end up in a churchyard. Well, actually he said end up six feet underground in a churchyard.

I am such a fucking doofus.

I am such a fucking doofus. My insecurity takes hold of me at the worst times. I just made it all about me and cried because I was suddenly afraid that with his new freedom he’d leave me. I must be the most foolish fae in the wood — there are many who would agree with that statement, I suspect — thinking for a moment that he would just leave me. But everyone, everyone so far has left me. I suppose technically I left Ceri and Emily Evans, my parents, back in London, but finding out they weren’t my birth parents makes me feel betrayed. And Father’s abrupt departure makes me feel betrayed. And I can repeat that sentence for Siansa, and Renata, and Aislynn, and even Cristof, who has separated his realm from ours. The only constants in my life are Aoibheann and Nathaniel, and Aoibheann — well, I think Aoibheann may be mad.

Alec and Isabella speak of our needing things to anchor us, that Nathaniel needs a bit of Alec, and I must be anchored to a goddess, whom I can only assume is Isabella herself. So I said, “Let’s be anchors. Let’s be anchors for one another.” And I cried, and he held me, and I felt loved and special and like an idiot all at the same time. We said words I can’t write down: they we

re too precious. And I won’t promise not to feel afraid or abandoned ever again, but for now, and maybe longer than now (I am too afraid to consider it, even now), I can say I am not alone.