Steph's Outcast

If Juth doesn't love me enough to come back, then I guess it wasn't real love, right?

The thought just makes me cry harder.

"Hello! Are you in there?" The voice is familiar, and probably the last person I want to talk to right now. Daisy.

I swipe at my tears, sniffing hard. "Just working on some tea leaves," I say. "I'm almost done."

Daisy ducks inside and then glances around. "Oh, my, I always forget how positively tiny this room is. Back with my old master, I had rooms bigger than this just for my earrings."

I bite back frustration. It's not Daisy's fault I just want to be left alone. I manage to keep my voice even, as I spread more leaves out on the blankets. "Did you need something?"

"Actually I was looking for you." She creeps inside and then sits down next to me on the fur, her hands in her lap. When I glance over, she gives me a knowing look. "Friend to friend, what are you doing, Steph?"

"What do you mean, what am I doing?" I gesture at the leaves. "I thought it was obvious."

Daisy shakes her head. "I mean with Juth. Why are you letting him leave you behind?"

"Letting him?" I choke, fighting back a fresh round of tears. Is she serious? "I'm not letting him do anything. He just left without me being able to talk to him. And I'm afraid he's gone for good."

Just saying it aloud makes me burst into tears. I should have tried harder to keep him. I should have made him realize that I love him. I should have clung to his fucking leg so he couldn't walk away from me. Now it's too late and I don't know what to do.

"Oh, honey," Daisy says, and puts her arms around me.

"I didn't want him to go," I weep. I'm tired of trying to look at things from all angles and understand things logically when my heart hurts. When I feel abandoned. "He didn't let me explain. I mean, yes, we started out with him thinking I was his mate but…I like him. I wanted to be with him. I didn't think it would hurt anything."

"Did you tell him this?"

"He didn't want to talk to me at all. He just kept walking away." I cry a little harder at that, because it's hard to apply therapy rules when the other person isn't around. "I know I'm supposed to wait until he's ready to listen—"

"Who says that?" Daisy interrupts. "That's stupid."

I sniff. "It's better to take a time-out to defuse an argument, so you can come back and discuss it logically."

"So, what, you just let him time-out forever?" She pats my shoulder. "I know you consider yourself the relationship expert, Steph, but that's just dumb. You do realize he's an alien and he doesn't think like us?"

"He's a person," I retort, pulling out of her grasp. "Of course he thinks like us." I'm insulted that she would insinuate otherwise. "Juth is just as smart as anyone else."

The look Daisy gives me is sheer exasperation. "I'm not saying he's not smart." She shakes her head. "I'm saying that he's not going to think the same as you or I. He didn't really have people around him, right? So how's he going to know how to properly argue? How's he going to feel when anyone contradicts him? He's not going to know how to handle that. And he's sure not going to know how to handle being embarrassed."

I blink. How am I so blinded by my own emotions that I didn't realize that? Of course Juth won't know how to handle things. "You think he was embarrassed?"

"Oh god, yeah." Daisy gives a wry laugh, tossing her lovely, reddish-gold hair. "He's been trying so hard to fit in that I imagine he was terribly ashamed to hear that you never chose him."

"That's not what happened," I protest. "He thought we were mates at first, and I didn't correct him. That was wrong of me. But I liked him, too. That's why I never said anything. And I'm happy with him. I love him. I never brought it up again because to me it doesn't matter. We got together, and that's all that matters."

"And yet you let him walk away," Daisy says gently. She studies me, then picks up one of the leaves I'm drying out and twirls it. "Here's the thing. When you feel…unwanted…it's hard to stay around." There's a husky note in her voice that tells me she's speaking from experience. "Sometimes it's easier to flee where no one can look at you hurting. But let me tell you." She shakes her head, her expression sad as she studies the leaf she holds out in front of her. "If I was feeling abandoned? I'd give anything to have someone come after me. To show me that I'm so important to them. To show me that I matter. Because when no one comes after you? It just reinforces the feeling that you're nothing to them."