The Fight
“Fuck.”
The word exploded out of me as the cupboard door slammed hard enough to rattle the rose-etched glass. It’s vibration protesting from the impact, and my eyes squeezed shut on instinct. For a split second, I braced for the crash—but it never came. I caught the vintage pane with my palm, steadying it, holding my breath until the trembling stopped.
I exhaled slowly, a quiet apology to the ghost of my great-great-grandpa for my carelessness.
When I opened my eyes, they landed on Caleb.
He didn’t even have the decency to look at me.
Six weeks of this—of being invisible in my own space, our arguments looping without resolution, his silence now felt like a dressed-up version of suffering that was bleeding all over me.
Not today.
Today, I was done watching him play the martyr, and me cast as the abuser.
Caleb stood a full foot taller than my 5′2 frame, his height casting a quiet shadow over the space between us. As he spoke, his eyes did not find mine—instead, they stayed fixed on the shelved wall behind me.
From where I stood, it felt less like a conversation between the two of us and more like he was addressing the room itself, leaving me on the outskirts of something I was supposed to be part of. But, as usual, in Caleb’s style, he commanded the room, and I was just supposed to listen.
“Be rational, Elizabeth,” Caleb growled when I chose to snub him with my silence, finally lowering his head to meet my eyes as an equal.
His voice was thick with frustration, edged with something harder— perhaps determination?
Maybe?
The usual bright cobalt of his irises had dulled, storming over into a flat, steely gray.
Even his raven-black hair, usually unruly in a way that suited him, looked wilder now—like it somehow became the reflection of the chaos he felt I’d brought into the room.
He ran a hand through it, a familiar, almost automatic motion—a habit from childhood, his “tell” that always followed when he knew he might be wrong about something but didn’t want to admit to it.
I used to find the action endearing; it made him appear more human to me. But at this moment, it just served as a stark reminder of how much we have grown apart over the past few years.
Now his innocent, reflexive action just really annoyed the shit out of me.
Stealing a glance out the window, hoping to escape his words, I hoped my distraction would give him the hint that I was nearing the end of my rope. Sadly, he remained in my peripheral vision, unmoved by my silence.
He took the beat and ran a hand through his hair once more as if trying to smooth out the tension in the room. I felt a small wave of regret, or maybe it was some strange version of loss? I couldn’t quite pick a color for his emotion; it twisted from yellow to green as it faded, like a sour candy taste in my mouth as I swallowed, and trying to wash it away.
Perhaps, deep down inside, he, too, wished things could be the way they once were between us. If I were only brave enough to ask him, maybe he could understand my anger, and I could understand his concerns. Tomorrow had caught up with us, complicating everything in its wake. I couldn’t help but wonder whether our friendship could withstand the injuries we’d inflicted on each other once it was all said and done.
Turning, I placed my hands on the rim of the sink, the chilled porcelain cooling my sweating palms. I focused my eyes on the horizon. Too much time had been stolen from me; I could measure it in the growth of the trees behind the barn. Years made them taller, so much so that I could no longer see the path to the river from the window. My understanding of my mother’s fondness for the kitchen and back porch, where she spent most of her waking hours when she was not out in the yard working, had completely changed upon my return home. I felt closer to her now than I ever did when she was alive.
I could feel his eyes on me, waiting for me to turn back to him. And when I finally did, my heart sank. Time had a way of changing things. Before age and duty became factors in our relationship, we had been the best of friends.
But now, it was as if we were strangers, burdened by the weight of our choices and being bullied by the approaching responsibilities of adulthood. I missed the boy he once was, as I was certain he missed the girl he had met in a strange new world over a decade ago. But as I looked at him now, I knew those days of youthful freedom were gone forever. And all we could do now was try to navigate the complexities of our present and hope that we could find a way to move forward without killing each other.
“Honestly, Elizabeth, I’m not sure I even know who you are anymore.”
I wanted to lash back with the same hurtful words, but I knew it wouldn’t solve anything. I was tired of apologizing for things I hadn’t meant to happen.
I stood my ground, placing my hands on my hips to show him I would no longer be intimidated by his accusations.
He acted as if I had deliberately dragged him across the divide, but it was he who stubbornly clung to my arm when the Veil opened. And he had been punishing me ever since with his absurd and tainted perspectives on how it all happened.
It was he who tracked me to the river that night, despite our awkward interlude during Lyra’s wedding reception, when he found me in the barn with his brother Demetrius. One would think that, finding the two of us redressing, flushed with the heat of the moment, he would have wanted to get as far away from me as he possibly could.
But no, not Caleb. He just couldn’t let me suffer in my own embarrassment before coming after me. Had he just minded his own business, he wouldn’t have known I had gone to The Veil, and we wouldn’t be in the predicament we are now. I would have just vanished, and he could have just moved on with his own life.
“We need to go home. You have never been this, so self-serving. This place is changing you. Every day that we stay, you become more of a stranger to me. The Elizabeth, I know, understands the consequences of-”
I raised my hand towards his face and waved in a dismissive gesture to cut him off. I rolled my eyes and sighed dramatically, even adding a raspy growl at the end for good measure before spitting back.
“Ella is not my home.”
By the look on his face, my words must have caught him off guard. He took a step back as if I had slapped him, his jaw tightening into place.
“I don’t want to argue anymore. Nor do I wish to continue engaging in this conversation with you. Trust me when I tell you, nothing you have to say is going to change my mind about going back.” I said, hoping to heaven he’d storm out the door as he often did during this stage of our daily dance of accusations and misappropriation of story facts.
My head throbbed, and all I wanted from him was to shut the fuck up and back away from me. I simply wanted to finish the dishes in peace and prepare for my night out with my friends.
I turned back to the sink, retrieving the scrunchy from my wrist. I hastily gathered my long, crimson-chestnut locks into a messy bun, securing it with three loops, and turned on the faucet to finish rinsing the cups I was washing before he had so rudely interrupted me.
With the weight of it off my neck, its length was just another sad reminder of how long I had been trapped in Ella, and I tried to enjoy the cool breeze on my neck from the open window. It was the small things I tried to take in and enjoy, knowing full well how quickly tides could change.
Ella was a backward world where women were valued mostly for their breeding and beauty. Even in the “free lands” where I had been living for the past seven years, the women were only allowed to cut their hair after marriage, and only if their husbands allowed it. Only the widowed were allowed to choose as a man. Those who could not or would not marry stayed in with their generational families and lived out their lives accordingly.
In my world, they called them spinsters back in the old days. But that notion was rare in Ella, because most women were betrothed at birth, even those of The Woods had little choice in that matter.
And though I never ventured beyond the bounded wall that chained the Woodlands folk to the land, it was too risky for my kind, according to Caleb, even though I was the only one of my kind that I knew of, so how would he know? Both my sister and mother died on the day we crossed The Veil.
I wasn’t even sure how or why I survived. Caleb found me in a crevice just before the river swelled and took my life. Fate somehow stepped in and urged him to make an unannounced visit, many weeks before we had originally planned the last time we spoke.
Unconscious and badly hurt, he brought me to the village of his childhood friend, her family took me in, healed me, and kept me safe. The gate was closed, and neither Caleb nor I could get it to open. What else could the people do but hide me with the rest of the witches?
Caleb often reminded me that I was one of the lucky ones, that no one knew of my existence, and that I could settle safely within The Barrio; its magic would keep me safe.
And when I would complain during his visits, he seemed to relish reminding me that the surrounding laws were much worse than the Woodland laws, often carrying violent consequences for anyone who didn’t align with The Crown.
So I felt a small sense of liberation, not caring what my mop of unwashed hair looked like atop my head. I had no one to impress other than myself.
I could cut it all off if I wanted to. In my world, at least in most parts of it, women were considered equals to men. Women in my time could do as they pleased with their bodies and had a say in their futures. There was no script I had to follow to be safe; I did not need a man to shelter me. Here, it wasn’t frowned upon for a woman to take care of themselves. In fact, it was expected, and I was ready to embrace my newfound independence. The thought made me smile. True freedom to be myself was the greatest gift I never knew I could have again.
The giddiness I felt almost tempted me to get into my father’s old truck and head to town. What would Caleb do if I came back looking like a pixie from some Disney movie?
Would he still want me to go back with him then?
“We have to go home,” he said, his voice laced with frustration, interrupting my inner dialogue.
“I am home,” I snapped sharply. I could see the anger written all over his face from my peripheral vision, but then the air shifted from frustration to sadness with my comeback. My heart skipped a beat with the shift of emotion, settling heavy in my chest.
Was I willing to sacrifice what was left of our friendship just so he would return to Ella without me? At this point, I was starting to think that I was. I had hoped we could part as friends, somehow salvaging the good memories of our past that had once meant everything to me.
We’d been a part of each other’s lives for so long, and the good years certainly outweighed the bad as of late. That I had hopes our history could heal what we’ve broken.
There had been a time after I got stuck in Ella when I tried to embrace my new life. I really did. I tried to convince myself that I should just be grateful to be alive, and that I was lucky to have been taken in by good people, who I know grew to love me as their own. That got me through the hardest days as I bent and tried to rebuild myself. Not for me, but for Caleb.
I was young. I had just turned 11 years old six days before the man’s arrival that ripped my life apart. The young are so good at hiding inside the expectations of their elders. It didn’t take long for me to fool everyone, including myself, into thinking I had adjusted perfectly.
It wasn’t til my toes touched the soil of my home again that I knew I could never be the same person I was, even if I were to return to Ella.
Caleb and I had fumbled many times over the years in our friendship. We nearly destroyed each other with a brief summer love affair that had me convinced I could stay in Ella forever, blissfully happy with him. When you’re fifteen, you still believe anything is possible.
Somehow, we managed to dig our friendship out of the ashes of our romance and move on. Or at least, he did. I managed to put on a good show, never really moving on. There were very few options for me in Ella; I was an oddity even among the odd.
I had often wondered how I could ever manage my life in Ella without him, even after he broke my heart. He was the only thing that kept me bound in reality in an alien world.
But the harsh reality of knowing he would have to leave me for two years to attend Trials had put a wedge between us, as my PTSD defensiveness grew. It was so confusing to love and hate his presence in my life at the same time.
Because once Trials took him from me, it was all real. I would be alone, left behind as he moved on with his life. The completion of service would then mark his place under his father’s rule, sealing his bond to The Crown. A fate he had not chosen for himself, but he would do nonetheless; it was his duty. He would have no choice, blood-bound since birth; it was either serve or die.
And I would have to live out my years, a prisoner of my own nature. Unable to leave the forest that hid me, he would be restricted to wherever his father chose to send him if he survived.
Sure, he could probably still slip away from time to time for a brief interlude, but that would only prolong the inevitable. We had decided it would be best to just move on with what life had handed us.
But now, as I found myself back in my own world, a feat I didn’t think would ever be possible, I realize that, as much as I loved him and would miss him on a level only death could compete with. I could deny the understanding that I could have the life that had been taken from me. And he could return to his.
Every moment of my life since I was 5 years old has been wrapped up in him somehow, but it seemed fate had blessed me with a gift, a new chance at a stolen life, and I was not going to give it back.
Never.
And it was so unfair of him to ask me to; his absurd request served no one. Not him, not me, and certainly not anyone in Ella. In fact, I couldn’t fathom what harm could come of my staying. That would cause him to be in such a crazed, unreachable distance between what I wanted and needed. He had never been so cruel as he had been since we arrived at my childhood home. A place he once loved to visit and often expressed his own desire to stay more than once, even if it seemed a lifetime ago now–he at least once understood my life.
I was, after all, born here, and had I not been forced to cross the divide in the first place, I would have never ventured to Ella on my own, not even to sate my own curiosities. Caleb’s stories were enough to keep me firmly planted in my own world. And grateful for its own shortcomings in comparison.
“Are you even listening to me?” his voice grew louder and more desperate with each overly pronounced syllable. I blinked, trying to clear the fog from my brain so that I could focus. But I was getting hit with wave after wave of his inner turmoil. I was beginning to feel inside-out and no longer in control of my own emotions. I couldn’t distinguish between my thoughts and feelings and his.
Not for the first time, I wished that I didn’t feel everything so intensely. My gift was more like a curse, depending on the day and who I surrounded myself with.
For instance, with Caleb, it was always a superhighway of indirections. His emotions were like a rollercoaster, sending me spiraling out of control on any given day. He had warned me many years ago that I needed to gain control of my empathic nature before it grew beyond what I could handle in stressful situations.
I had flipped him off and stormed away, tired of him always trying to dictate and correct all my flaws. Annoyed with his constant pursuit of me to embrace my mother’s otherworldly origins after getting stuck in Ella. His pleas had fallen on deaf ears.
I clung to my human father’s DNA with both tooth and nail, longing to live in utter denial. Nothing in me wanted to find the truth of how my mother managed to cross the divide. I only wanted the fairytale version of the life she had created for my sister and me.
Despite having a best friend who just so happened to be born in the same world, I had regrettably hidden his existence from her, thinking my mother would find me crazy and send me to the loony bin if I told her I had a shapeshifting, vampire friend who came to visit once a month from another dimension.
How stupid did I feel to find out six years later, when my mother’s brother showed up and forced the three of us to follow him across The Divide. I look back now, and I understand why she kept it from me. Although I hated her for many years after. So angry that she died before she could explain it all to me, leaving me in the darkness to navigate a world filled with monsters on my own.
Denial.
Denial.
Denial.
It’s not just a river in Egypt, after all.
Had I listened to him back then, maybe I could have figured out my mother’s secrets before it was too late to ever ask her.
Surely, at the very least, it would have saved me the aggravation of being manipulated by my own best friend, who was using my confused feelings for him to his own advantage.
What an asshole.
Was he the angry one, or was I?
My focus returned for a moment as I brushed the fragments of him out of my mind. He must have sensed my return to focus because he ran his hand through his hair again as he chewed on the inside of his lip.
It was a small added gesture, one that always turned me on. Any time he brought attention to his lips, I swooned like a smitten schoolgirl all over again. They were so soft and plump, and the most kissable lips I had ever tasted. Not that I had many to compare them to, but even if I did, there would be no comparison, I was certain.
Wait–.
What?
Where did that come from?
I was lost again, and I had to take a step back, trying my best to push the intrusive thoughts away, but they lingered, fueling my suspicion of him even more.
I narrowed my eyes in study. He quickly shifted uncomfortably from one foot to another, giving the game away, guilt written all over his face.
It was insufferable how quickly my emotions could swing from anger to desire and back to anger again. He was so irritating, yet so irresistible, and I was always falling back into old bad habits with him despite knowing I could never truly have him.
It was shameful that he used my desire for him to his advantage, dangling his affections like a carrot to a horse, always trying to lead me back to him, fully knowing he did not desire me the way I desired him.
It made me want to slap him for real, just so he could feel an ounce of the pain I felt in my heart.
My heart skipped a beat. I realized I had lost track of where we were in our argument, again. I wasn’t even sure what we were talking about anymore.
Both hands were in his hair, pulling the shag of its length from his eyes and holding it in place, resting atop his head, his eyes shining with an otherworldly cliché, reminding me of my annoyance with him. Thank God for his “tell” or I might have been trapped in that lusty loop forever.
He almost fell over from the emotional impact I pushed his way. “I hate when you do that,” Caleb whispered, his eyes half shut for a moment before he regained his composure. It was rare that I could manifest an emotional virtual retaliation, but I was elated that he felt the sting of his own game. Because now I knew for sure that he was tapping into me.
The betrayal was real; he was shameless to have used my own emotions against me to try to control the narrative. But I kept my observations to myself, not wanting to give him any more power over me by showing him how hurt I was. “Go home Caleb,” I said, trying to regain my composure as I swallowed.
He dropped his hands, finally shading the beauty of his eyes, momentarily giving me a chance to take a much-needed deep breath. He crossed his arms, resting them against his broad chest as if to shield himself from me before he bit back at me, “You’re so infuriating and self-destructive, you only ever think about yourself,” he retorted, taking a few steps away from me. The tension between us was now palpable, but I refused to back down after the way he had just used me.
I stepped toward him, filling in the space.
“Me? You’re the one who’s risking your life every day just to prove some half-assed point to me. You don’t care about what I want, you never have. You only want me to return to Ella just to ease your own mind and so you know exactly where to find me, if and when the whim strikes you. You’d leave me, helpless and alone in a cruel world, dependent on the kindness of strangers, while you go live your life in a palace somewhere, spitting out more little princes and princesses with some beautiful woman that your father finds for you. They know of your betrayal of the very crown in which you serve, but have no title to. You’re the selfish one. You fucking egotistical hypocrite.”
It was awful, and I didn’t mean most of it.
His jaw tightened, and I knew I had hit a nerve. But I refused to let him manipulate me any longer. It was time for me to take charge of my own life.
And I was so over his bullshit.
With a deep breath, I pushed past him, my small frame bumping against his arm as I forced him to move further away from me or knock me over. He complied; he was too much of a gentleman not to.
Besides, my aggression wasn’t meant to antagonize him into a physical altercation; that would just be stupid on my part. It was more for my own self-assertion; I needed to show him that I wouldn’t be led around anymore.
His biological excuses for being overprotective and pushy didn’t seem all that gallant anymore. And even though I understood his nature, being born a half-breed myself, and at times a slave to the blood and magic that coursed through my veins. I found it annoying that he preached discipline and control to me, yet was always trying to pull the “alpha dog” card to excuse his bad behavior.
“It’s my life, not yours,” I spat at him as I turned to make eye contact so he could see my truth.
“How I choose to live it no longer concerns you. As much as I appreciate all you’ve done for me during my time in Ella, you are missing the big picture. Now that I’m home, I don’t need you to take care of me anymore. You would think that that would be a relief to you. Can’t you just be happy that I am no longer a burden to anyone? It is a true gift, not just for me, but for those of The Woods as well. The very people that you say are your true family. You should be thanking the gods; they no longer have to worry about anyone finding me in their home.”
Caleb dropped his arms to his side, uncertainty in his eyes. He licked his lips as if taking the beat would somehow stop my soapbox rant.
It did not.
“I am most certainly capable of navigating my true home without your input and broodish guidance. I have no doubt in myself or my ability to rebuild my life here without your help. However, have serious cause for concern about you. I believe you’re the one who requires a babysitter, not me. Your decision-making skills leave a lot to be desired. I know the sigils have stopped the spread, but we have no idea if and when they will restart. You’re the one playing with death, not me. Go back to Ella Caleb. You don’t need me to go with you; you know the way. After all, you crossed it first, remember?”
I could feel him seething from his corner of the room; his mood was thick like fresh honey sticking to my insides. But instead of the sweet floral scent of tapping into a hive, it smelled sour, like rotten milk left out in the sun to spoil.
I wavered slightly when his impetuosity hit me like a rock in my stomach. I mentally braced for his rebuttal. But then I saw the storm in his eyes turn to that of dimmed misery, and I knew that I had broken him.
For the first time in weeks, I saw the vulnerability in his eyes; the distress that I was causing him. It had been there all along, disguised in his anger and animosity toward me.
I didn’t want to hurt him. I just needed him to see beyond his own narrowed point of view. But now I realized I had been so focused on asserting myself that I had lost sight of him altogether. Not taking into consideration how rapidly all of this was changing his life, too. And I felt my own wave of guilt collide with his.
My Caleb.
“I am sorry,” I whispered, my voice barely audible. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
His silence spewed forth with a million unspoken words. Finally, understanding that I would not change my mind.
I imagined it was much too late for apologies anyway. “Sorry” is just so empty when you know it won’t change the outcome. I would never return to Ella, and once he was safely home, I would do everything in my power to make sure the door to the other side remained closed forever.
Good Start!!! ❣