Total pages in book: 36
Estimated words: 34065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 170(@200wpm)___ 136(@250wpm)___ 114(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 34065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 170(@200wpm)___ 136(@250wpm)___ 114(@300wpm)
It wasn’t until later that we found out she’d just emerged from stasis…and she thought the year was 1958.
After finding out that it was over fifty years later, something inside Pearl had shriveled up and died. She’d gone into a fugue-like depression that nothing could snap her out of, not even her sale to another praxiian lord. I remember watching her leave our cage, a lifeless, sad husk of a formerly vibrant person.
Stasis amnesia does fucky things to the brain. Maybe Ruth-Ann has a similar situation and me prompting her about her birthday brought up bad memories. Or worse, no memories.
I’m the bad guy in this situation.
I feel awful about it. Sick to my stomach. Poor Ruth-Ann. I pried at something that obviously triggered her and now she’s avoiding me, and I can’t blame her for it. She’s just protecting herself.
I need to give her time to recover, to let her come to me when she’s ready to be friends again. My heart heavy with regret, I push my cart into my room and stare at my surroundings. It feels like I’ve somehow lost my best friend.
I hope she doesn’t hate me for long. I don’t think I could stand that.
It sounds stupid, but I miss Ruth-Ann already. I sit down on the couch and hug Pluto, but it doesn’t ease the ache in my heart. He snuffles at my hair, but he doesn’t lick me like I’m a kitten that needs tending to. Not like he does to Ruth-Ann. For some reason, that just makes my heart hurt more.
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
SIMONE
A week passes, and Ruth-Ann avoids me. I don’t see her in town. She doesn’t come by my cart to say hi, or to bring me my daily cup of night tea. For the first time since I arrived on Risda, I feel lonely. Pluto watches for her all day, his ears pricking, and I can practically feel his disappointment when no one brings him his kitty cookies. They’re not the same when they come from me. Because they come from her, they’re special.
Her absence is a continuous ache, and I endure the week like an automaton, going through the motions. I want to fix this, but I also don’t want to trigger Ruth-Ann into a bad headspace. I know what it’s like to try and move on from a bad past. I wouldn’t wish those memories on anyone. It makes me ache to think I’ve harmed my friend like that. I need to fix it, somehow.
When the day prior to the cantina opening arrives and there’s still no sign of Ruth-Ann, I decide to say fuck it to being patient. I’ve been waiting for her to make a move all this time romantically, and she’s been avoiding it. Why would I think that she’d somehow take the initiative with this? If I want to clear the air—and I do—I need to be the one to do it.
So I make a plan. Instead of waiting on her, I’m going to rip off the proverbial band-aid and confront her myself. I’ll apologize, tell her I understand, and woo her with cake. It’s my birthday, but that’s not nearly as important as the opening to the cantina itself. I know she’s been working hard for months and so has the rest of the crew…and I have a cake concept I’ve been dying to try out.
I can skip the bakery cart today. Everyone’s going to be heading to the new cantina to check it out anyhow. Instead of my regular baking, I make a cake. It had started out as an experimental cookie I made last month that had turned out too thick and cakey, but the texture turned out to be perfect for a sheet cake. For icing, I blend honey and a very soft, buttery cheese, and the result is so delicious I’m delighted with myself for thinking of it.
Pluto puts his paws up on the counter, his nose working. He loves the smell of cheese, and so I spread some on a bone and put it in his bowl so he leaves my cake alone.
I make a second small cake and pipe a big R-A on it. The main cake will be for the crew at the cantina, but this one is just for her.
Once the cakes are ready, I shower and linger in the bathroom, fussing with my appearance. I normally toss my hair into a loose braid, but today I want to look a bit more glamorous. I pull it into a high ponytail atop my head, smoothing flyaways with a bit of oil on my hands. I have a berry-colored lip tint made by someone here in Port, and I dab it on my mouth and cheeks to give them color. I find my tightest-fitting tunic and pin it at the waist to show off my figure, and tug it down at the front to show the girls off a bit. I look pretty sexy, if I do say so myself.