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She remembers the anger.
It had been a blur, for the most part. Rushing wind and curling vines, the constant push to grow, grow, grow consuming her mind. It had been war. Be stronger. Be bigger. It’s so easy. Just reach out your hand and pull down the sky.
She could have, if she wanted to. She could have torn the world from its axis and consumed everything she loved. And part of her, the ugly part that whispered of a childhood abandoned, had wanted to. Make them pay, whispered the voice in her mind. No one ever cared about you. Make them pay.
But that wasn’t right. She remembered the rush of adrenaline during a race, and the crowd chanting her name after she’d crossed the finish line far ahead of anyone else. She remembered the little girl in the audience who had looked up at her with stars in her eyes and proclaimed her a hero.
She remembered Hurley.
Now, she remembers the anger. Her own anger, and the anger of the sash, and the anger that the sash had forced her to feel. Hate them all , said the sash, and she had thought, I could never hate Hurley.
She remembers war. She remembers pain. She remembers guilt.
The war went away. The pain and the guilt did not.
Sloane wakes up crying more days than not. Her dreams are a tangle of vines and the crash of thunder overhead. Her dreams are the darkness of a building consumed and the distant look in Hurley’s eyes as her veins filled with the icy claws of poison. Her dreams are a reminder of all she has done, of the damaged she has caused, and so it is that she often wakes up crying.
Never screaming, though. Her childhood had taught her never to scream upon awakening.
And she’s learned how to deal with it. Usually, when she wakes up with a scream still lodged in her throat, Sloane will check to see Hurley curled up beside her, will calm her hammering heart with the feeling of petal-soft hair against her lips. Then she’ll do what she’s doing now: she’ll climb out of bed and make herself some tea and try desperately to forget.
Oh, how she wishes she could forget.
And usually that’s it. But today is different, because today Hurley comes to join her at the kitchen table.
“Hey,” says Hurley, voice rough from sleep, and Sloane hunches tighter over her mug. The steam drifts up towards her, the sweet smell of chamomile slipping into her breath, and she uses that sensation as a point of focus.
A gentle hand on her shoulder. The scraping of a chair against the floor, and then Hurley is sitting beside her, close enough that their shoulders are touching.
“Did I wake you?” asks Sloane. She hopes her voice doesn’t sound as broken as it feels.
Hurley sighs and reaches out to run soft fingers through Sloane’s hair. “Sloane,” she says. She sounds tired, and worried. “You can’t keep doing this to yourself. Please just talk to me.”
She’s noticed all the mornings. Of course she has.
“It’s just…” Sloane exhales deeply and leans into Hurley’s touch. Her fingers are calloused and craggy, somewhere between skin and bark, but they are warm and they are gentle. “Sometimes I think I don’t deserve...this. You.”
The smallest of gasps escapes from Hurley’s mouth and then strong arms are wrapping around Sloane’s upper body, pulling her close. “Sloane,” she murmurs. “It wasn’t your fault. You know that.”
“I should have been stronger,” says Sloane. “I should have done better.”
“You did your best,” soothes Hurley, and Sloane knows she’s right, but she can’t get the screaming out of her head. “No one expected you to beat that damn sash. No one else could have resisted for as long as you did.”
The twisting, all-consuming vines. The blackness of the sky. The panicked faces of the bystanders caught in the frey. Hurley, breathing jagged, lips red with blood and blue with poison— her fault.
“You died,” whispers Sloane. A tear slides hot and wet down her cheek to form a dark spot on the table. “You died, and it was my fault. I love you and I killed you.”
“It’s not your fault,” says Hurley again, urgency and insistence in every note of her voice. “Sloane, it’s not. And I didn’t die. I’m right here. You didn’t kill me, you saved me.”
Hands around her own. A flower blossoms in Hurley’s palm, soft and pink and delicate and so easily crushed. “See,” says Hurley softly. “You saved me.”
Sloane buries her head in the crook of Hurley’s neck and cries.
“Where are we going?” asks Sloane. The city bustles around them, residents and merchants and visitors mingling to form a shifting, chaotic crowd. Every now and then a person will recognize the two of them, and thank them with a beaming smile. Every time, Hurley will smile back, and Sloane will hide her face and bite down on her guilt.
Don’t thank me. I almost killed you all.
“Someplace special,” says Hurley. She squeezes their clasped hands tighter and offers Sloane a reassuring smile, but there’s something wet in her gaze.
“Hurley…”
“Just go with it, okay? Please?”
And Sloane isn’t really in the position to deny Hurley anything so she shuts her mouth and follows.
Hurley takes her to the tree, because of course she does.
The tree is larger than she remembers. It grows from a pool of water in the middle of the street, surrounded by a low metal fence that the city put up after...after. There’s a small commemorative plaque: here grows the tree from the sacrifices of the militia lieutenant Hurley and the battle-wagon racer Sloane. It’s funny how they became heroes after the Day of Story and Song; how quick the city is to forget the pain caused by Sloane’s own hand.
She hasn’t visited the tree in a long while. Hurley has, she knows; it’s the source of their continued life, after all, and someone must care for it. But to Sloane, it is too much of a reminder of her sins.
“Come on,” says Hurley, stepping over the fence. Sloane follows her dubiously.
“Hurley, why are—”
“Look at her,” says Hurley, gesturing to the tree. “Look how big she is. She’s strong. And beautiful, you know? I mean, look how many flowers she’s grown.” She plucks one from the ground and threads it behind Sloane’s ear, where it tickles her bark-like skin. “She’s not growing in the most optimal place, but she’s making do. She can’t change where she is, so she’s making the best of it. This street used to be ugly, remember? Now it’s beautiful.”
There are tears sitting hot and heavy in Sloane’s throat. “Hurley…”
Hurley places her hands on Sloane’s arms and smiles softly. “You’re beautiful too, you know,” she says. “I know you’re afraid of this tree. I know you think it symbolizes all the things you blame yourself for. But that’s not what it is. This tree is us, Sloane, both literally and figuratively. It’s our life.” Gently but firmly she pulls Sloane down to press a soft-sweet kiss to her lips. “It’s our love.”
A choked sort of half-sob, half-laugh escapes from Sloane’s mouth. Hurley is right, just as she always is. This tree is the life that sprung from her destruction. This tree is their love, strong and beautiful, not the poison that had ripped at both of their hearts.
“Thank you,” says Sloane. And then, “I love you.”
Hurley pulls her down to lie among the gnarled roots of the tree and kisses her temple. “I love you too, Sloane. And even though I don’t even need to say this, if it might help you to know—I forgive you.”
And that is everything Sloane has been needing to hear.
They lie like that for a while, long enough for the sun to rise fully and for the shadows to grow dark beneath them. The city passes around them, oblivious to the dryads embracing beneath the bows of their life-tree.
A loose blossom flutters delicately on the breeze and lands in a small but well-kept garden. A little girl picks it up and runs excitedly to show her grandmother, sitting hunched and serene in a wicker chair. “Grandma!” cries the girl, small palms cupping the flower gingerly. “What does this one mean?”
The grandmother opens old eyes and smiles. “Ah,” she says. “I know that one. That one means love.”