CHAPTER 5
1170 Words
ARIA POV
The store owner looked between me and Celeste and I could see her doing the math in her head, the discomfort of a confrontation versus the name Varon and whatever that meant to her business.
I spoke before she could.
"I'm sorry," I said, pleasantly, "we've been making people uncomfortable? Which people specifically?"
Celeste turned back to me, the sweet expression still on her face but her eyes were doing something else entirely, "I don't think this concerns you."
"You're trying to get me thrown out of a*****e, it concerns me quite a bit, actually."
"I'm simply letting the owner know that some customers are disrupting the environment."
"By shopping," Hanna said flatly beside me.
"By existing in spaces that don't belong to them," Celeste said, and she didn't even flinch.
The store went even quieter.
I tilted my head at her, "That's an interesting thing to say out loud."
"I say what I mean."
"I can see that," I said, "so let me do the same. Your father works for a king, that's his job, it's a good job, good for him, but it doesn't make this store yours, it doesn't make this campus yours, it doesn't actually make anything yours, and the fact that you've walked in here and tried to use his name to remove two people who are doing nothing wrong is genuinely embarrassing, not for me, for you."
Celeste's smile disappeared.
Lena made a sound.
"You don't know who you're talking to," Celeste said quietly.
"I know exactly who I'm talking to," I said, "I've known girls like you my whole life, the name changes, everything else stays the same."
"Girls like me," she repeated slowly, "you're standing in a mid-range store in a campus jacket and you want to talk to me about girls like me."
"There it is," I said.
"Where is it?"
"You ran out of actual arguments so you went for my jacket," I looked down at it then back at her, "I like my jacket, thanks."
Hanna made a strangled sound beside me that she covered with a cough.
Celeste took one step closer, dropping the performance completely now, her voice low, "I have been patient with you, I don't know why. Maybe I thought you'd figure out how things work here on your own, but clearly you need it explained directly. You are no one here. You have no name, no connections, nothing. And I will make sure that every door on that campus feels that way for you."
I looked at her for a moment.
"Are you done," I said.
Her jaw tightened.
"Celeste." Alexei's voice came from behind her, low and even, and she turned immediately, her whole posture shifting the second she looked at him, "Let's go."
"She…."
"I know," he said, "let's go."
I thought that was it. I was already turning back to the rail, done with all of it, ready to find Hanna's top and get out.
Then he looked at me.
"For what it's worth," he said, and his tone was different from Celeste's, not cruel, just flat and certain, "she's right that you don't understand how things work here. It would be worth your time to figure that out."
I stared at him.
"I'm sorry," I said, "Are you standing here giving me advice right now?"
"I'm stating a fact."
"The fact being that I should understand my place."
"The fact being that this environment has a structure and ignoring it doesn't make it disappear."
"That's a very elegant way of telling me to know my place," I said, "I almost missed it."
"That's not what I said."
"It's exactly what you said. You just used more words," I shifted my bag on my shoulder, "and honestly I expected better from someone who's supposed to be so intelligent, that was a very basic thing to say."
Something moved in his eyes quickly, the same flicker I'd seen before.
"You're making things harder for yourself," he said.
"I'm shopping," I said, "you're the ones who made it complicated."
"Alexei," Celeste touched his arm, her voice back to that careful sweetness she used around him, "She's not worth this, let's just go, I want to look at the place down the road."
He held my gaze for one more second.
Then he turned and walked out, Celeste tucked against his side, her girls following immediately, Lena glancing back at me once with an expression I couldn't fully read.
The store exhaled.
The owner behind the counter went back to her scarves without a word.
Hanna grabbed my arm with both hands the second they were through the door, "Okay, we are leaving, right now, we are leaving before anything else happens."
"I still need to pay for…."
"Aria."
"Two minutes."
I paid for the top Hanna had been holding the whole time, and we walked out into the open air. I could see Celeste and her group further down the street, Alexei's hand in his pocket, not touching her, not talking, just walking.
"She's going to make good on that," Hanna said beside me, her voice quieter now, the adrenaline wearing off, "what she said about making things difficult for you."
"She was going to do that regardless."
"You didn't have to push it that far."
"She tried to have us removed from a*****e, Hanna."
"I know but…."
"There's no but," I said, not harshly, just tired now, "I'm not going to spend the next however many years making myself smaller so she feels more comfortable. I can't do that."
Hanna was quiet for a moment, then, "I know."
"I know you know."
"I just worry about you," she said, "you go so head first into everything."
"Someone has to."
She bumped her shoulder against mine, and we walked back toward campus without saying much else. The afternoon had gone grey and cool, the streets thinning out as we got closer to the dorms.
I was so exhausted.
I was asleep before ten.
The dream then came the way it always did, not like a story, not like something with a beginning, just images, thick forest, red sky, a burning building somewhere behind trees, the sound of wolves and metal and something collapsing. And running, always running, arms wrapped around something warm and small.
Then white.
A wolf, pure white, standing in a clearing, those silver eyes looking directly at me, through me, like they were looking at something I couldn't see myself.
And a voice, not loud, not soft, just certain, settled into the air like it had always been there.
When the time is right.
When the time is right.
When the time is right.
A hand landed on my shoulder.
I came up fast, gasping, heart slamming, the blanket twisted around my arms, sweat cold on my face.
Hanna was sitting on the edge of my bed, eyes wide, lamp on, her face tight with something close to fear.
"What happened, Aria?" she said, looking worried.
- Writer
