If anyone ever discovered how much power this one girl had over me, I would be laughed at from Nottingham to Sherwood and beyond. I trudged on. One of the guards at the gate heard my boots approaching and turned. I straightened to my full height and forced my face into an ugly sneer.
“Out for another late-night stroll, Sheriff?” he asked after saluting.
“Can’t sleep,” I barked. “Too many people asking nosy questions. Now lower the drawbridge at once.”
The guard clamped his mouth shut and saluted again. His companion hurried to give the signal, and the drawbridge began to lower with a groan. I marched over the moat and into the forest beyond.
I made no attempt to quiet my footsteps. It felt satisfying to crash through the underbrush. Branches snapped beneath my boots and leaves tore against my legs. Every time something broke under my weight, a small portion of the frustration inside me eased. Nature didn’t interrogate me about my past. Nature did not look at me with horror and ask how I could have done the very things I already hated myself for doing.
It simply let me crash through it.
James was waiting in the clearing. In the dim light from the moon, he was difficult to see at first. It wasn’t until he waved me over to where he sat that I could make out his thin profile on a fallen log. Even if he had already spoken to Laurel, even if he was only pretending to still be on my side, it was good to see a familiar face that didn’t cower away from me.
“It’s a wonder you’re a tracker,” James joked when I reached him. “I could hear you coming a mile away. Thought you were abear for a bit there.” I grunted and sat heavily on the other end of the log.
James waited a few moments. “Bad day?”
I feared that if I opened my mouth, I would say something else that would drive away one of the few remaining friends I had…if he even was still my friend.
James studied me for a moment, then leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “I’ll just give you a quick update, and then you can get back for some sleep. I won’t keep you long. I know you have a lot to deal with.”
What was it exactly that he knew?
James began to speak about how our information had helped Robin Hood find where King Richard had been held, but Richard had already been moved, and they were trying to trace him again. He mentioned Philip’s army drawing closer, part of a report from Dale and Will Scarlet, and several other matters that should have been important to me, but it was impossible to focus.
The words slid past me. I heard names, places, fragments of plans, but none of it settled. My mind remained locked in the same room with Laurel, watching her walk to the door and hearing her say goodbye.
“Stop,” I finally said.
James fell silent as I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose.
We sat for a few minutes without speaking, James patiently waiting beside me. The forest filled the silence around us. Insects chirped in the grass. An owl called somewhere far off. Leaves shifted faintly overhead, stirred by a breeze I could feel against my damp forehead. It was the sort of quiet that usually steadied me, but tonight it only made the emptiness inside me feel even more expansive.
“Did you talk to Laurel today?” I asked eventually.
“No,” James said. “I haven’t seen her in the past three days. We’re supposed to meet tomorrow.”
So he didn’t know yet.
“Is anything wrong?” he asked.
I swallowed hard. He would find out eventually. Better sooner than later, and better from me than from Laurel, though I could hardly imagine any version of the story that made me look good.
“We aren’t together anymore,” I said.
I was glad there was no shake in my voice. I sounded calm and collected, almost bored. I didn’t want James to think I’d dissolved into a pathetic mess because some girl decided she and I weren’t meant to be.
“I see,” James said.
We sat in silence for a long time. That was one thing I liked about James. He didn’t rush to fill every quiet space. He didn’t laugh awkwardly or pry for details before I was ready to offer them. James understood what many others did not. Sometimes the best thing a person could say was nothing at all.
I was the one who finally spoke. “It was her idea.”
“I figured,” James replied.
I stiffened. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Did everyone think I was so desperate that I would never suggest Laurel and I go our separate ways? That I was some hopeless romantic who couldn’t imagine life without her? Did they know Laurel had always been indifferent to me and it was only a matter of time before she left?