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They lock eyes as soon as Solace exits her workshop. She sees the letter in Unsuur’s hand as he hides it behind his back. Blinking at him, Solace tilts her head to the side, waiting for an explanation.
“Oh hey, Solace. I was gonna put this letter in your mailbox but then I decided not to. Oh shoot, I just remembered that I needed to go home and lock myself in my closet. See ya later.”
Before Solace can stop him, Unsuur dashes away towards his house.
It was Unsuur… Unsuur is the one who wrote those letters…
Solace’s knees give out and she drops to the ground. She shuts her eyes tight and covers her ears because her heart is pounding and the noise in her head is just too loud.
What is this feeling? Why am I excited and nervous at the same time? Why do I feel like screaming?
She picks herself back up and dusts the sand off her pants. As the loudness in her head quiets, one thought is all-consuming.
Go to him.
Solace makes her way over to Unsuur’s house. She walks in and true to his word, he had locked himself in the closet.
After trying to coax him out of the closet with little success, Unsuur is still adamant that he didn’t write the letters. He suggests an investigation complete with music to find the real author of the letters. Solace decides to humor him with all of this and proceeds. Much to her delight, she learns many more things about Unsuur during all this, making her feel even closer to him. When they run out of clues, Solace turns towards the closet, seeing the door won’t budge. She looks down at her feet and balls up at her fists. Her face turns red and her bottom lip is quivering. Solace remembers all the nice times she’s had with Unsuur. Watching paint dry, organizing the rock shelf, seeing his face light up when she gave him a new rock, all of those memories are very important to Solace and she cherishes them deeply. She had never felt this way about another person before, as she puts her hand on her heart and feels it thumping out of control. Solace knows what she wants to say, she knows what feeling she wants to express. But she can’t.
Idiot. Don’t you remember what happened last time?
Of course she remembers. All the faces are blacked out, covered by scribbles, and all of their voices are distorted. However, the events of that day are still crystal clear in her mind, as if they happened yesterday. She releases a gasp she had been inadvertently holding and closes her eyes.The memories crash onto her like a wave.
Solace skips into school, happy as can be. She grips a letter in her hands and searches the halls for her target. He couldn’t be too hard to find, as he was the most popular boy in her whole school. Since he’s so popular, that means he’s obviously the nicest, right? It didn't take long to find him; he stood by the lockers, two twin girls clinging on each arm. Usually, Nia would be close behind her, making sure nothing bad happened to her. But she was out sick that day. Besides, what does she have to be afraid of? The worst thing he could do is reject her, right?
She walked up to the boy and tapped him on the shoulder. The trio all turned around, and the twin girls grimaced while the boy kept a neutral expression.
“Eww, get away, stupid Floppy girl!”
“...Weirdo.”
The boy raised his hand and both girls went quiet. He looked down at Solace.
“What do you want?”
WIthout an ounce of fear in her body, she presented the letter to him, all with a big grin.
“A letter? Let me see.”
The twins protested, “Gross, don’t touch that!”
“...might catch her stupid.”
“Will the both of you shut up? I’m reading.”
When he finished reading, he folded the letter and looked back down at her.
“You wrote this? All by yourself?”
Solace nodded.
“Wow, it’s been ages since I read something this funny, pfft, I can barely keep it together.”
He busted out into a loud laugh and the girls laughed too. By this time, a small crowd formed around them.
Solace started to laugh too. Nia told her that friends laugh together, so that must be what’s happening.
The boy wipes a tear from his eye, “Oh, so you genuinely don’t get it, do you? Do you know how many confessions I get every week?”
She shakes her head.
“Of course you don’t. I bet you don’t even have feelings for me at all. You just went with the crowd and decided to confess your love to the most popular guy in school, is that right?”
Solace excitedly nodded, because that was true, confessing their love to someone who’s widely adored was just something normal human beings do. She did it so she can properly assimilate with her peers, to be more human.
“You really have zero shame, Floppy girl. And since you lack shame, you probably also lack the ability to take no for an answer. So let me express it in a way even you’d understand.”
The girl didn’t realize what was happening until the hand made contact with her face, smacking it hard. Solace looked at the boy wide eyed, touching her cheek that was struck. She wondered why he hit her, she wondered what went wrong, she wondered how she misunderstood everything.
Backing away slowly, she tried to run but he grabbed her and threw her small-framed body to the ground. As she squirmed to try and get up, he took his foot and stomped it down on her cheek, pinning her down to the floor, as everyone watched. She attempted to move, but that only made him grind the soles of his shoes harder into her face.
“The more you struggle, the worse it gets for you, sweetheart. But I guess I shouldn’t expect an animal to understand that.”
He stomped his foot twice down on her head, causing it to bounce from the floor. She whimpered in pain.
“Aww, did that hurt? So sorry.” he tsked, “You should actually be grateful for this, I’m doing you a huge favor. I’m teaching you how the real world is and putting you in your place.”
Solace laid there helplessly, as he pressed harder and harder. So hard that it forced tears out of her eyes. She wanted to go back and live in the woods, she wanted to ho- to ju- to run - she wanted to go home.
The crowd murmured to itself, everyone’s previous smiles and laughter had morphed into looks of fear and concern. He turned around with his foot firmly planted on her face and could tell he’s losing them.
“Well, since you all look so petrified, tell me. Who would love her? Please tell me, who on this entire planet would love this trash? Tell me, tell me! I can’t think of a single person who would ever love a beast! Can you?”
He punctuated this by grinding down and giving two quick, sharp stomps, causing Solace to yelp in agony.
“And you know what the best part of all this is? You know what gets me really excited? It’s the fact that she can’t tell a soul. None of you can.”
The crowd stayed silent.
All of a sudden, the bell rang and the crowd dispersed, leaving Solace and the boy alone.
“I want you to remember this moment, little bunny. If you ever think that anyone could ever love you… Think again.”
He removed his foot from her face, she could smell the rubber as his parting stop smushed pieces of grit further into the smooth skin of her cheek. Then, he just left her there and went to class. As she laid there, splayed out on the tiled floor, staring at the reflection of the fluorescent lights, all she could do was just cry out of complete and utter fear and confusion. She cried there for what felt like hours, but in reality it was only just a few minutes. Eventually, she just got up and went home, nobody tried to stop her. When Nia saw her bruised and swollen face, she immediately questioned her on what happened. But she never told anyone what occurred that day. That was the last day she ever went to school, deciding to complete her studies on her own, even getting accepted into a decent Builder program, and after that the rest was history. Solace learned many things that day, but the two sentiments that she remembers most are that the most popular people aren’t always the nicest and that she shouldn’t ever, ever trust her own feelings again.
Solace sinks to her knees and physically cannot stop shaking. She hugs herself and sways as tears gush down her face. Looking down, she closes her eyes and pictures what Unsuur would do to her if she had confessed her love to him. She pictures him coming out of that closet, grabbing her by the hair, and dragging her into Martle Square. There’s a big crowd waiting for them. He would push her down and stamp his boot on her face, while everyone would watch and laugh.
“You disgust me,” He would say, pressing his foot harder onto her, grinding her into the sand.
Solace violently shakes her head and begins to cry even harder, whimpering. As she sinks lower and lower onto the floor, she doesn’t notice the closet door opening.
“Jeez, it was getting hot in there. I figured you had left so I-”
Unsuur stops talking as he walks closer to Solace and sees the state she’s in.
“Hey, hey, hey, Solace, Solace, Solace, it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay. It was me, I wrote the letters, I’m so sorry I lied, this whole investigation was a dumb idea, I’m so sorry, please don’t cry.”
Silence hangs in the air for a few seconds. Solace hiccups, shaking her head in jerky movements. He doesn’t understand. Of course he doesn’t. She’s just a stupid dumb floppy that doesn't speak and no one will ever understand-
“This isn’t… about the investigation or the letters, is it?”
Still shaking and hugging herself, she looks up at Unsuur and says what she couldn’t that day.
“Pl-please d-don’t h-hurt m-me.”
Unsuur’s eyes widen and he releases a small gasp.
“Wh-what?”
“Pl-please d-don’t.”
Solace watches him drop to his knees; she doesn’t understand why he did that. A beat of silence occurs between them. Unsuur swallows and clears his throat.
“I don’t… I don’t know what you went through that would make you think I would hurt you. Please believe me when I tell you that I would never do that to you and I never will do that to you. I… I’m so sorry, Solace.”
Solace blinks at him and tears fall to the floor.
“You can… You can cry on my floor for as long as you like. You could stay for hours, days, weeks, even years just crying. I wouldn’t mind even if you flooded my house with your tears.”
Solace sniffs and wipes her eyes.
“Of course, I do like it better when you smile. But you don’t have to. I know it can be… hard sometimes.”
She’s looking down at the floor.
“Um… Do you want to go home?”
She nods.
“Do you want me to walk you there, or do you want to go by yourself?”
Solace lifts herself from off the floor, legs wobbly like a baby deer. She slowly walks up to Unsuur, who hasn’t stopped looking at her this whole time, grabs his arm, links it around her own, and looks at him with expectant eyes.
“O-ok, I’ll take you.”
The walk home is completely silent, with only the sound of the wind filling the air. When they make it to the gate, Solace turns around to face Unsuur.
“Do you need anything else? I can, um, sweep your house? Check for bandits? Um… wash your… chickens?”
She shakes her head.
“Okay. Yeah, that was a little dumb. I, uh, I’ll leave you alone now. Sor-”
Before he can turn around, Solace leans forward and rests her forehead on his chest.
“Oh.. Um…”
Unsuur stands there, completely at a loss for what he’s supposed to do, until he takes a breath and does what his heart is telling him to do.
“Do you… want me to hug you?”
She nods her head against his chest and Unsuur complies by wrapping her up in an embrace. They stood there for a few minutes, as he swayed slightly and softly back and forth.
“Um… Just to let you know… I meant it when I said I’d never hurt you. I tend to keep my promises.”
“Hm.”
“Also, if anyone else hurts you, you tell me, okay? I’ll take care of it.”
“Mm-hm.”
They sway and hug for a few more minutes, until Solace takes a step back and Unsuur lets go of her. The pair stare at each other silently for a second and then she waves goodbye.
“Good night, Solace.”
As soon as the door shuts, Unsuur turns around and heads back home. He sits on the edge of his bed, looking at the floor and thinking about what happened today. His eyes wander to the nightstand, where a rock shaped like a heart sits. Unsuur grabs it and looks at it. Holding it in his hands, he caresses it with his thumb. An agitating voice keeps playing in his head, a voice that wasn’t even speaking directly to him. It has a mocking tone, asking something of him and repeats the same phrases over and over again. In order to make it stop, Unsuur decides to answer the question it keeps on asking out loud for everyone and no one to hear.
“I would.”