Page 21 of The Last Casterglass
“You’re the first person who has actually ever tried with me,” she stated quietly, her head lowered, blonde curls falling in front of her face. “Look, I know what I’m like, okay? I’m unfriendly, unpleasant, even rude. Iknowthat. And yet you still tried.” With her gaze still on the ground, she shook her head slowly, as if she couldn’t quite believe that he had, and Oliver folded his arms. He wasn’t ready to unbend, not until he figured out where she was going with this.
“And?” he asked after a moment.
“And I didn’t know what to do with it,” she confessed, giving him a quick glance upwards before she hid behind her hair again. “I still don’t. How to respond. I just…didn’t have the…” she shrugged “…the experience or the skills or anything. And so I acted like a big jerk, because I felt so…exposed. I really am sorry. I have this awful tendency to do that because I don’t know how else to be. I really wish I hadn’t with you.”
“Technically, it was with Sam.”
She gave him the ghost of a smile then, which almost had him smiling back. He was discovering it was far more pleasant to be easy-going rather than angry, and yet, even so he couldn’t quite let go of his hurt.
“Either way,” she said, facing him head-on for the first time. “I’m sorry. Truly. Can we please…start again?”
Oliver hesitated, his gaze moving upwards to the bright blue sky as he scratched his cheek. What did start again even mean? They’d barely started, after all. They’d had one sort-of date, not even that. It occurred to him then that his reactions to Seph had all been out of whack—from his determination to get to know her, to win her over, to the hurt he’d felt at her throwaway comments last night.
He needed to calm the hell down, he decided. Start acting like a sensible grown-up rather than some…drama queen. And he definitely needed to stopcaringso much. Jeez. When was he going to grow up and stop being such a damned people-pleaser?
“Sure,” he said, and he stuck the scythe in the ground as he gave what he hoped was a careless shrug. “We can start over. Why not?”
That didn’t seem to be quite the answer Seph was looking for, because her expression clouded as she slowly nodded. “Okay,” she said slowly. “Great. I’m glad. Thank you.”
Oliver nodded back and picked up his scythe. After a few moments where the only sound was the sweep of it through the brambles, Seph forlornly picked her way out of the orchard and headed back down to the castle.
Chapter Nine
Seph was lostin thought all the way back to the castle. Her boots clumped through the frost-tipped ground as she traced her steps back through the wood, down the hill, and then through the walled garden, her mind spinning and sifting through all she’d learned in that short, painful conversation with Oliver.
He was willing to start their friendship over. That was a good thing, even if the way he’d said it had hurt, like he didn’t really care either way. But hehadto care, at least a little, Seph thought, to have been so hurt. Right?
She’d been so surprised by that. Surprised and gratified and alarmed all at once, that she’d affected him so much. For most of her life she’d felt as if she hadn’t affected anyone at all, because no one actually cared enough. All right, that was perhaps being a bit too self-pitying. She knew her parents loved her, even if they seemed to forget about her half the time. She didn’t actually doubt that, and yet she didn’t alwaysfeelit, either, but maybe that was her own fault, at least in part. She had chosen to act rather unlovable, indifferent to the people she was supposed to care about most.
Not a great way to be, really—for her or her family.
Seph stopped right there in the garden as the realisation washed over her. She’d made a rod for her own back, by being so prickly, difficult, and defensive. A rod for her own back and her own worst enemy—pushing people away when what she really wanted was to be loved and accepted. Making it hard for them to love her, even if they wanted to.
She thought about Olivia and Althea last night, telling her she could talk to them, that they cared. What if it hadn’t been the kind of throwaway remark she had always assumed them to be making? What if they’d been trying, and she’d basically turned her back, because it felt easier? Or at least safer.
Slowly she sat down on a wrought-iron bench against the garden wall, staring blankly into space, mindless of the icy iron beneath her. She’d always been of the don’t-let-them-hurt-you-first mentality, but she’d known for a while now that that hadn’t got her very far. She’d still been hurt by the seeming indifference, and she’d made it impossible to show it. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot…or really, the heart.
But could she be different now? Different with Oliver, and different with everyone else, to boot? She thought of Sam’s words last night:Who are you trying to impress?He’d only been teasing—she’dknownthat—and yet it had still felt excruciating because she didn’t want to try and fail. She didn’t want to offer up even a little piece of her heart and have it rejected.
But maybe the alternative, of keeping the whole thing to herself, was worse. Far worse.
But what would trying even look like? With Oliver? With her family?
“Seph, there you are!”
Seph looked up, blinking in surprise to see Olivia bustling towards her. “The seamstress has arrived with all our dresses! You’re going to try yours on, aren’t you?”
“Dresses?” she repeated blankly.
Olivia shook her head, smiling. “What are you like? Don’t you remember, for Althea’s wedding? The wedding that is in less than a month?”
“I’m wearing a dress? Again?”
“Why do you think I gave you a dress rehearsal last night?” Olivia returned with a laugh. “I’m trying to ease you in gently. Because you have to wear your bridesmaid dress, Seph, and heels. Sorry.”
“Wait,” Seph said, blinking up at her sister. “I’m a bridesmaid?”
Olivia shook her head. “Althea asked us both a few months ago. Don’t you remember?”