All This Time

17 ⦿ in which i admit it

December 23, 2010 1:00 p.m.

It's hard not to blame Xander. I know it just slipped out, but a part of me resents him. He's so at ease around everyone, even people who he should be more wary of. Especially with other people's secrets. My secrets.

Levi's words linger in my mind along with the look of surprised hurt on Wolf's face. Almost as though I had let him down.

The others are walking ahead of us on our way back to our accommodations, but Wolf won't quite meet my eyes. At least not when I'm looking. At the third time he shifts his gaze away when I turn my head, I blurt out in exasperation, "So are you just not going to talk to me?"

Wolf still doesn't look at me. "I am talking to you."

"Yeah," I scoff. "Right." Without waiting for a response, I stride past him and catch up to the others.

Levi gives me a sympathetic look. "You look like you just got coal in your stocking."

"No thanks to you two," I reply glumly, sighing.

"Me?" Levi looks taken aback. "What did I do?"

"Reinforced Wolf and Graeme's belief I'm a grubby gold digger, for a start." Tears prick at my eyes but it's so cold that they don't fall, for which I am immensely grateful.

"He's an idiot if he believes that," Levi dismisses.

"Yeah," I echo. I'm sure of only one thing - that in all this, it's me who has been the idiot.

The Woodland House lives up to its name. It's a rustic brick and wood cabin that almost looks like something from the set of Little House on the Prairie. Even though snow has covered everything with its unforgiving blanket, I can see flower beds which will bloom in spring and spindly trees which will soon have scores of squirrels scrambling up its branches. To everything there is a season...

Wolfram is winter. He is sharp ice and fireside warmth. His eyes could cut glass but his smile would light up a room with its blaze if he wanted.

Graeme is spring, still thawing from the bite of winter and with a fragility that you wouldn't believe unless you knew her. She is beauty and brains, and I think, somewhere deep down, she could be kindness. One day.

Levi and Xander are summer. Irrepressible and full of light, always shining not only on themselves but the people around them.

I am fall, the most ambiguous of seasons, when life can turn soft and languid or sharp and brittle. I am the precursor to winter, but I haven't lost my summer glow. My heart is heavy and my hope reluctant, but winter will take its due. I can rage against the coming of the chill, of the death of the soft summer, but it is a futile rage.

Thinking of this, my rage seeps away. Liking Wolf is not in my control. It's hormones and pheromones and probably a heap of other chemical interactions that are beyond my comprehension. He is as certain and as unstoppable as the chill of winter which comes to choke the life out of the summer.

My thoughts have taken a melodramatic turn. Thankfully, I don't have to dwell on it much longer because Levi pushes past me to grab the door Graeme has almost let slam shut in my face.

"My lady," he mock-bows, holding the door for me.

Dazed, I half-heartedly smile. "Thanks."