when the question finally came out of my mouth, all heads turn towards me then all eyes faced kiri, whose face went black. emotionless. a sort of baby blue that made it look like she had vomit waiting to escape from her.
then she looked at me. with glossy eyes and trembling lips, she parted them to begin to speak, but struggled to make any sound. maybe she had a strong connection to him? closer connection than the others? of course i was right. the way the others reacted said it all. the way she reacted said it all.
"kiri, whats wrong? why cant you tell me who spider is?" i asked again, this time a bit aggressively. it may be selfish but i felt completely left out. the others were closer and knew about neteyam and spider long before i did, and still hardly me about the brother, and now im finding out about someone new who clearly meant something to all of them?
the secrets here were beginning to feel like lies, and the lies were beginning to feel like betrayal.
and so this time it was me that walked away from the situation. i didn't want to make it worse by putting in my own negative words, and i felt like it would be better if maybe i didn't know who this spider was. if they weren't telling me, it's because i shouldn't know right? or they don't want me to know? either way, i won't find out.
once i got to the igloo which was only about a 20 second walk, i noticed loak was back. he probably only went from a one second march into the caves and came straight back.
obviously as all 6 of us were in the same igloo, we all chose different areas as our own in which we sleep in, so i was surprised to find loak in my section.
"you feeling better now? calmed?" i asked, with what i hoped was a soothing voice so he could tell i wasn't trying to boil his anger any more.
thankfully, he was calm. relaxed even. "yes." a simple response, yet enough to know he won't suddenly lash out again. hopefully.
he looked up to speak. "i'm sorry we didn't tell you. i'm sorry i didn't tell you. even though we didn't see a purpose in you knowing, you should've still been aware." it was clear what he was talking about.
i sat down next to him, laid my head on his shoulder and continued to listen to him.
the whole time, we remained still, apart from the movements of our chests from breathing.
after what must have been an hour, i had a greater understanding of who spider was, and the imagine in my head for what happened was clearer.
it had now all made sense: why they never wanted to mention him, and why it was a sensitive topic towards them.
"we spoke about it before. we agreed that we shouldn't speak about neither neteyam or spider so we wouldn't get upset and so others don't think differently of us." and suddenly a guilty pit appeared in my stomach.
all they were wanting was to protect themselves from grieving more, and protecting me from thinking negatively of them for trusting the untrustworthy.
i sat up and planted a kiss on loaks cheek. that was my reply to the whole situation. words weren't be enough to describe my emotions towards the family and the respect i had for them no matter what had happened, and so this connection felt right.
"loak," i began, "i see you." and i finished. that was enough for him to press his lips against mine, and let ourselves get lost in the moment.