Side Story:
Sylphiette
(Part 4)
L ATELY, I’D BEEN FEELING more and more anxious about the situation.
Silent had turned out to be a girl. That was no big surprise in itself. Some of the Princess’s sources had suggested it might be the case, in fact. In hindsight, lots of her little innovations were things that a woman might appreciate. She’d improved our food, our clothing, and the soap we used to clean our hair… once you realized that she’d been acting for her own sake, it all made total sense.
My anxiety wasn’t about her , really. It was more about Rudy. For some reason, he seemed devoted to Silent.
There were lots of beautiful women in his life already. Linia, Pursena… Elinalise was dating Cliff now, sure, but she still counted. Rudy had never shown much interest in them.
Silent was a different story, though. For some reason, she was special to him. She had a complicated problem she was struggling with, and he wanted to help her. That was probably a part of it. Rudy liked helping people out.
But it wasn’t just that. There was some special connection between them, one I couldn’t understand. And it was definitely bringing the two of them closer together. They probably didn’t have romantic feelings for each other. I didn’t get the impression that Rudy had fallen for her. But his relationship with her seemed more…intimate than any of his others. Were they even closer than I’d been with Rudy back in Buena Village? Maybe.
Since Rudy started helping out with Silent’s experiments, he was spending less time looking into the Displacement Incident with Fitz . And spending more time with her, of course. And when you spend enough time with someone, it’s not unusual for something like romantic feelings to develop almost out of nowhere.
Back when he’d befriended Linia and Pursena, I hadn’t been that concerned. But now, it wasn’t hard for me to imagine Silent taking him away. That made my heart throb painfully.
Did I hate Silent or something? It wasn’t like we’d even talked that much. I didn’t have a reason to hate her. I just didn’t want her taking Rudy from me, that was all. She’d popped up out of nowhere, and now she was acting like she’d known him forever. She sat right next to him casually, like they’d been friends for years. That was where I was supposed to be.
I wasn’t sitting there now, sure. So I couldn’t really come out and complain about it. But if she was going to claim that seat, I wanted her to do it right. I wanted her to spend lots and lots of time with him first, and make lots of memories. Either that, or I wanted her to move further away. Maybe then I could accept… whatever this was.
“Sigh…”
Were Rudy and I really going to just…drift apart like this? The Princess said I could take my time with it. But if there was no chance at all, she wanted Fitz to stop interacting with Rudy altogether. The two of us would go our separate ways.
Even if Fitz left his life entirely, Rudy would keep on going just fine, moving ahead the same as always. Silent would take my seat for herself. And maybe they’d end up spending the rest of their lives together.
…I didn’t like that thought. Not one bit.
This wasn’t going well at all. But what was I supposed to do?
The answer was obvious enough. I had to come out and tell him who I was, and then tell him how I felt. At least that would be a step forward, one way or another.
But no matter obvious that was, I couldn’t get my legs to move. The thought What if he says no? kept flashing through my head, and keeping me from moving.
If I didn’t do something, I’d definitely regret it. But I couldn’t bring myself to act. When had I become such a coward? I used to be pretty timid as a child, sure, but I thought I’d grown braver than this over the last few years.
Had my courage fallen out of my pocket somewhere?
I really wished someone would bring it back to me.
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