"You know what? Fine," he said, "I'll take your fucking word for it. I hope that I'm wrong. I hope they all are. I hope the others are just like those of you that came here."
"They are," she yelled. There was no way that the Terra were right. Her people would never do such monstrous things.
"Okay," he said, finally getting out of her way.
"But Lex?" she said, looking over at him.
"Yeah?"
"I'm only staying for my friends because they’re happy here. I will never forgive you for this," she said, walking out of their bedroom.
He didn't respond.
She heard him getting ready for bed as she settled down on the couch.
Even though he was willing to try again, that he would send another group to look for the others, she was still so, so fucking angry at him. And there was no way that she could ever trust him again.
But her people needed this place. The others would, too, once they found them. They needed somewhere safe to live. So she would stay. She'd stay married to the king because she needed to. But she would never, ever let herself be fooled by Lex Mills again.
Chapter 33
She told her people the next morning. Well, the ones who were still around.
They were confused, naturally, about why Lex had kept it from them. But Aria didn't tell them about why he had decided to keep the information to himself. She did tell Mara, Martinez, Brent. And Peter, though. They were just as skeptical as she was. There was no way the things Lex had claimed could be true.
After lunch, he told her that he would be sending another group the next day. A boy from her group, Riley, would be going with them.
She only nodded in response.
Yeah, she was staying. Yeah, she was still married to him. But that didn't mean she had to be his friend or anything close to that.
Days passed. Weeks.
"I'm sorry," he said one night. She had just crawled into their bed after another long day tutoring kids. She went to her side and turned her back on him, not wanting to hear another apology.
"Aria, please just talk to me. I really am sorry. I wanted to tell you but-"
"But nothing," she said. "And don't act like you're sorry. The only thing you're sorry about is finally getting caught."
It was what he had said to her at the house. She hoped it hurt him just as much as it hurt her all those months ago.
After that, he tried to apologize a few more times. But once he realized that he wouldn't get anything more than a few nasty words and a scowl in response, he stopped trying.
Part of her had already begun to miss him and what they had. She wanted to give in. To accept his apology and put it all behind them. He was trying to find the others, after all.
But the other part found it hard to even look at him.
She wasn't sure when exactly she'd fallen in love with Lex Mills. But it wasn't like that was important now.
Love wasn't part of their arrangement. It wasn't a condition.
It had crept up on her slowly like winter did the fall.
But now everything was cold.
"How long do you think it'll take them?" she asked him one night over dinner. She didn't really want to talk to him; they'd been ignoring each other for weeks. "I mean, how long does it usually take?"
"I don't really know," he said, shrugging. "It was different with you. They brought you across the land; all my people had to do was wait. I don't know for sure how long it will take them to get back, considering your people might be in more than one place."
"Oh," she said.
"But if I had to guess, I would say that my people should have reached them by now. The ones closer, anyway. And if they decided to come...they should be here in less than a month."
She nodded in response.
The next night, Ben came to visit the palace.
She told him about what had happened. He seemed a little smug. It kind of made her want to punch him. She asked him again about how he found out, but he never gave her a direct answer.
The next few weeks pass by agonizingly slowly. Each day, she got up and went to the school. She'd help the teacher with lessons, grade papers, play games with the kids.
It was a good distraction. A distraction she needed because she grew more and more nervous with each passing day. Had her people been found? Were they on the way? Was there some sort of explanation about where Lex's people had disappeared to?
She hoped so.
"Can you blame the guy?" Adrian asked one morning after training.
"What?" Aria asked. He'd found out, too; they had let him into their inner circle. But unlike the others, he didn't seem as upset.
"I mean...we all know what they're like, down there. These are people who sent a bunch of kids up here entirely unprepared. None of us were important to them. Would you want those kinds of people here if you were the king?"
"Not all of them are like that, Adrian. Some of us have friends. Family," Martinez said, "And besides, down there, they didn't have a choice. Our life was restrictive, so we could survive. We only had limited food and supplies. We knew we’d eventually run out, and someone would have to be sent up here."
“You’re wrong, Shawn. There's always a choice."
"And when the fuck did you become so enlightened, Adrian?" Martinez asked, clearly moved to anger.
"Everything I learned," Adrian began, "I learned up here.”
When she wasn't thinking about her people, she went back and forth with herself regarding her feelings for Lex. She missed him. She hated to admit it, but she missed him.
She missed his laugh and his smile. She still saw those things, but she was never the source. She was never the person he was smiling at or laughing with.
