Chapter 15, Sarah
I leave Roberts with her officers and find a place near the railing, trying to understand what the hell just happened.
One minute, I was furious, ready to confront her for playing me for a fool. The next, it was like the world was ending, but I couldn’t name how or why. Just this overwhelming certainty that I had to warn her of something terrible.
I had to speak the words. Holding them in felt like it would rip the air from my lungs I didn’t obey.
The closest thing to it is my night terrors, that feeling of impending doom so strong it chokes out everything else. But this time, I was awake.
The fear lingers, but the urgency is gone, leaving me untethered. I still want to confront her for lying to me, but it’s less important now. Maybe I don’t want her to know that I know… yet. Two can play this game. If I give myself some time, I can figure out how I can use this to my advantage. But the first thoughts that come aren’t exactly useful.
I see her behind the wheel of a ship, a real captain. Not just playing the part, but commanding it. And now, with new eyes, I let the past and present collapse into each other. Let Darlene and Captain Roberts become one.
And then, inevitably, I remember the last time I saw her.
The same vision I dreamt about last night, but now my waking mind fills in the details. It wasn’t just the last time I saw her, it was the first time I realized I didn’t want to say no anymore. That I wanted to let myself feel what I had spent so long denying.
I rejected her so many times before. Told myself she wasn't good for me, a bad apple. But when I lay in my bed that night, staring at the ceiling, I couldn’t shake her. My heart wouldn’t slow, heat pooling low in my body, my pulse climbing with every almost. What if I had stayed? What if I had told her yes? Yes, I feel it too.
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The thoughts didn’t stop. They built and built until my feet carried me back to her room. And she was gone.
Morning came, and she didn’t show up for chapel. Days passed. When I finally asked, the elders told me she had run away. She left a note for her family saying she wasn’t coming back, and no one should look for her.
Even though I had only let myself love her for a day, I lost a part of myself when she left. Only once she was gone did I truly understand how much I had come to rely on knowing she wanted me. Rejecting her had become something I took for granted, never believing it would end.
As days passed, I told myself she left because I pushed her away one too many times or that she was always going to leave, no matter what I did. Either way, I took it hard. I never said it aloud, but it showed. The weight of it, piled on top of my worsening night terrors, had begun to quietly unravel my mind. I stopped believing in everything I was taught.
After a while, there was no hiding it. I looked haunted. I couldn’t pass as the model disciple anymore. The elder prophets hovered and hounded me. And when that wouldn’t bring me back they isolated me, exorcised me, stripped me down to a shell of who I was. Until one day I snapped. And I ran.
I wandered in the wilderness for days. That’s when I found the dragon egg, or rather, it found me. I met Andreya. Built a new life, with a new cause to believe in.
Life outside the walls had a way of swiftly putting my ghosts to rest. Survival doesn’t leave room for rumination. And besides the night terrors that continued to persist, I was soon free of the trials of youth. Real hardship forcing them to fade into nothing, pale and weightless in comparison.
And yet, seeing her again, it feels like it was yesterday. And suddenly, it makes sense. The way my eyes keep betraying me, drawn to her lips, her jaw, the way my pulse stumbles every time she meets my gaze.
My mind forgot her, but my body never did. And in a way, it’s a relief. To know it’s not her unshakable confidence, her magnetism, the way she commands a room like she owns it. It’s just a childhood crush. That’s all.
