Page 35 of Tangled at the Root
Rosemary’s in an Ankara dress today—green leafy print with the occasional flower in colours matching the beads in her hair. It hugs every dip and curve of her soft, padded frame, a sweetheart neckline enhancing the plump fullness of her breasts. Three small straps do the same to her shoulders, framing them beautifully. The hem of the dress stops mid-thigh, where a short, ruffled skirt ends a few inches above her knees.
I can’t stop thinking about how easy it would be to push that skirt up. I wonder if her panties are a shade of green. Fuck. They are. I know they are. They’re probably lace, too. I’d taken an “accidental” peek into her underwear drawer back in uni; the image of lace and silk and frills is practically imprinted behind my eyelids.
And the waist beads.God. Is it the same one from back then? The one I’d spied a few times, each illicit sighting making my lower belly burn and clench up tight. Where it had once settled loosely around her waist in five lines, it’s now in four, pulled snug to accommodate for all that new thickness.
“Are you living the dream, then?” I ask when we’re at the dining table, the fire of my arousal forcefully stomped to ashes. “Being a “holistic nutritionist”? Is that what you really call it?” I try, but I know my smile doesn’t quite reach my eyes.
“Oh. Um. Yes. I actually, officially started last year.” She grins, and as always, it’s enough to soften my mouth and my gaze, to make the barely-there tilt of my lips feel more natural. “I’m actually a rua oerhwu.”
My smile widens infinitesimally. “Impressive.”
“You don’t even know what that means,” she says with a dismissive flap of her hand, but she’s blushing.
“A herbal healer, isn’t it?” I tease. “Or is herbal witch more accurate?”
She’s so flustered, it’s adorable. “Fine, yes. If we’re being literal. But while we do focus a lot on personal healing of all kinds, we’re more interested in the home. We believe the place you choose to rest your head is as important is your head itself. So, we do a lot of cleansings, basically. Then the herbal healing comes after.”
“An all rounder. Not that I expected anything less.” I wonder what it’d feel like to sink my fangs into the corner of her jaw, the bottom of her cheek—if the hint of jawbone and teeth would make the bite more or less satisfying. “That fits you so well.”
She blushes, stuffing a perfectly golden plantain in her mouth like it’d divert my attention. It doesn’t.
I take a spoonful of oatmeal, already mixed with milk and brown sugar. As usual, my portion is three times the size of hers.
I stare down at the food. My mother had eaten portions as big as this, too—sometimes even bigger. I don’t know why it’s only just occurring to me that our voracious appetites might’ve had something to do with our accursed hunger; a subconscious need to fill it, perhaps, even though it had never worked.
The oatmeal turns to ash, but I don’t stop eating. I don’t want Rosemary to notice.
“What about you?” she asks after a bit. “Are you a personal trainer, yet? Have your own gym?” She waggles her eyebrows.
And suddenly, the oatmeal is back to being warm and sweet and smooth, melting delectably in my mouth. “Yes and no. Yes, I got my license a few years ago; no, I do not have my own gym. I’m going to need to make a little more money, first,” I tease.
“And is it what you wanted? What you dreamed of?”
I think of the few clients I have; the gym had been generous enough to let me pick my clients, and I always go for people who are like me; folks desperately searching for control—to find it or to keep it. I help them with that control through exercise and yoga and sometimes, meditation, making sure to teachthem how to maintain a good balance without it straying into obsession.
Nothing like I’d been my first time straining for control.
“Yes,” I answer, though it’s melancholy. I’d had to stop when I’d—when I’d thought I was simply losing it.
At first, I’d pushed myself harder. I’d brought back the toxic training my mother had used on me as a child, hoping to somehow brutally discipline myself back into being human.
Without her teachings, as awful as they’d been, I’m not sure I would have lasted as long as I have.
Now, though, I know it had been pointless. No amount of training can alter my very blood.
“You said before, that it doesn’t matter if you wear that.” I jerk my head at the twine around her wrist. “Since you can’t be killed. But can you get hurt?”
“Yes and no.” She pushes her glasses up her nose. “I can get hurt, but not for long enough to matter. Besides that, I don’t, um, scar.”
Her scent changes subtly, and whatever the monster senses makes it bristle. There’s something loaded in that last word, something that reminds me of my own invisible scars, woven onto my skin with my mother’s unrepentant hands.
“It’s almost like an accelerated healing, kind of? At least accelerated enough to literally bring me back to life, if we put it that way.”
I stare for a moment, then force myself to focus back on my food. I’m not letting anything hurt her again. I don’t care how impossible it seems right now—in the study, the attack had been sudden, violent, and seemingly unstoppable, done by a powerful, unseen force.
But I hadn’t known what I know now. The monster is awake. Alert. Iwon’tlet her get hurt again.
When we’re done eating, neither of us moves. Rosemary’s squirming a bit, staring down at the table.
