Page 61 of Tangled at the Root
My lover is trying futilely to tug the plants off and away, but for every bud she uproots, three more sprout to life in their place.
For a moment, I’m frozen.
One word, and she could break me. Onelook, and she could completely unmake me.
“Rosemary,” I say tentatively.
She whips around. “Genevieve!”
Relief floods my body when she rushes into my arms, the feeling so intense my knees threaten to lock. We hug each other tightly, then we’re trading fast, desperate kisses.
“Are you okay?” I ask, pulling back, my gaze rapidly travelling all over her form. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m all right, I’m good, I promise,” she says, smiling gently, though her eyes are roving all over my body just as urgently. “What about you? Are you okay? Did you—did you get any dreams from your ancestors?”
Slowly, I nod.
Her throat bobs with a swallow. “Me too.”
“I remember what happened when I was twenty.”
“You … remember?”
“My grandmother had taken the memories from me. But my mother just returned them.”
As one, we turn to look at the slab, covered completely in the orereowe flowers. The sisireowe must’ve been overtaken at some point, overwhelmed by the former.
“She’s still there,” Rosemary whispers. She turns to look at me, her gaze pleading. “I can’t—we can’t leave her here like this. She deserves better than this.”
It takes me a few tries before I can speak. “You mean you don’t think I—you still believe I’m—”
As always, she knows what I’m fumbling to say. Her entire body softens.
“I believe you,” she whispers, cupping my face in her soft, cool palms. “I trust you. I love you.”
“B-But …” I clench my jaw at the pathetic tremble in my voice. Having my memories back adds a different dimension to my understanding of myself. Watching what my mother and grandmother had become at the end—what if I’m headed toward the same fate? Doing desperate, despicable things all so I don’t have to ever acknowledge the monster.
“Genevieve,” Rosemary reprimands gently.
“What if the only reason I was drawn to you was because of some deep rooted instinct left behind by my ancestors? What if that thing—that part of me—could somehow sense your gift, and honed in specifically on you because of that?”
What if the only reason I want her is because the perfect predator in me can sense the perfect prey in her? How can I be sure what I feel is real and not just the monster?
“What if it did?” Rosemary retorts. “We made achoicethe day we met, Genevieve.Youmade a choice. Maybe it was instinct. Maybe it was attraction and chemistry and a whole host of other things. But you could have turned around and walked out. I could have ignored you, or decided not to come back to that study room.”
It feels like my heart is thumping too loud. “But we didn’t.”
“No, we didn’t,” she repeats. “Why?”
“I-I don’t know.”
“Why Genevieve? Why did you keep coming back?”
“I—”
“WHY?”
“Because I wanted to!” My chest heaves. “Iwantedto. Fuck.”
