The Honorable Thing

By Laura Schiller

Based on: Wings

Copyright: Aprilynne Pike

Laurel had never broken up with a boy before, and had no idea how to go about it. There had been occasions in her life when she had been required to turn down a prospective suitor (a natural consequence of being born symmetrical), but never anything like what she was about to do.

She and David were on her sofa together, having just finished watching The Return of the King, when she decided to do it. It was not an ideal time – the credits were rolling with their hauntingly gorgeous music; David had his arm around her, warm and comfortable as ever; and the dreamy look in his blue eyes was so endearing that she could hardly bear to ruin the moment. But then again, there never would be an ideal time, and so she scooted away and grabbed for the remote.

David looked at her with a frown of puzzled inquiry as she hit the pause button.

"Somehing wrong?"

She clenched her fists in her lap as she turned towards him, looking over his left shoulder as she couldn't meet his eyes.

"David … um … at the risk of sounding cliché … we need to talk."

A glance at his face showed that his mouth was set in a hard, thin line. It was the same look she had seen when he had caught her leaving Avalon with Tamani; the same night Tamani had kissed her. David was smart; he could probably guess what she was about to tell him.

"Talk about what?" he asked, clearly making an effort to sound calm.

"I don't think we should see each other anymore … you know … like this." She waved her hand to include the video, the sofa and the two bowls of snacks on the coffee table (chocolate for him, peaches for her). "Like a couple."

Her own lack of articulation mortified her. God, could I sound any lamer?

David lowered his eyes, so she couldn't have looked at him even if she'd wanted to, and leaned forward on the couch, running his hands through his dark blond hair.

"I should've known this was coming," he muttered, more to himself than to her. "I should've known … only, Laurel – you might have figured it out a little earlier."

She blushed invisibly, the sap rushing through her veins making her ears ring. "I know. I … guess saying I'm sorry doesn't quite cut it. The way I behaved was unfair to both of you … denying how I felt about Tamani, going out with you even though I knew I couldn't be completely yours … I'm just trying to make it right."

Laurel had been trying to live in both worlds, keeping David as her lover and Tamani as a safe, nonthreatening friend, failed spectacularly, and succeeded only in making both boys upset with her. Tamani couldn't put up with second-best, and as it turned out, neither could she.

Laurel loved Tamani. She had known it from the moment they first kissed – the rightness of it, that passionate flame which made her kisses with David feel like a polite handshake in comparison. Tamani made her come alive, a normally reserved girl suddenly playing pollen tag, dancing and fighting with equal verve until she hardly recognized herself. He was the reason she was so outspoken against the faerie caste system; the idea of him not being her equal in every was hateful to her. She had even broken her word to him to save him from Barnes, knowing she'd rather die with him than leave him to die alone.

She had denied it so long out of loyalty to David, whom she had met first and who was such a safe choice – kind, caring, open-minded, respectful of her faerie self; she would never think to compare being with David to playing at the edge of a raging river. David was a rock. She relied on him. And if a certain something was lacking in their relationship, well, who was she to complain?

David drew himself up, took both her small white hands into his large tanned ones, and met her eyes for the first time. His expression was serious, and he looked more adult than she had ever seen him.

"Thank you for being honest with me, Laurel," he said quietly, keeping the at last at the end of that sentence tactfully to himself. "I understand. Well, not exactly … " with a shaky approximation of his familiar self-deprecating smile, "But I'm trying. So … so does this mean you're going back to … ?"

"No. I have to stay here, remember? To protect my parents. I can't be driving down to Orick every weekend and leave them alone, even with the sentries. And besides that, everything's so uncertain with the trolls, and a long-distance relationship would be just … No."

She screwed up her face and shook her head again, remembering all the awfully sensible arguments she kept running over in her mind. They were the only thing keeping her from jumping into the nearest bus to her old cottage right now.

"But I am going back," she said, a little more firmly. "As soon as the trouble with the trolls is over. The old cottage is my home; I belong there."

I belong with Tamani, she added in her mind's eye, touching the seedling ring pendant around her neck.

David nodded, let go of her hands, and stood up. She followed suit, so that suddenly she had to bend her neck to look at his face.

Suddenly a painful lump came into her throat. She felt as if this were the last time they would see each other – right now, surrounded by this familiar sofa and DVD set and bookshelves and carpeting. David in his jeans and black T-shirt, with that Zac Efron hairstyle she had run her hands through so often. It was the last time, she realized – the next time they met, it would be as two different people. People who were no longer lovers.

God, how she would miss him!

"I'll see you at school tomorrow?" she said, with a smile too weak to fool either of them.

"Yeah. At our usual lunch table, if that's okay."

There it was – the unspoken implication that he wouldn't leave her, that they would try to salvage at least some scraps of the friendship that had changed their lives so deeply.

It was not too late. She could still take back everything she'd said, still throw herself into his arms and be kissed in that gentle, almost reverent way of his – No. No. Thinking of kisses brought her immediately back to Tamani, and confirmed just what she had set out to do. She had to do the honorable thing by both of them – if she couldn't love David with her whole heart, she should not be loving him at all.

"Take care, Laurel," said David, catching on to the atmosphere of farewell. He held out his arms for a hug, dropped them, put out his right hand instead, and ended up giving her clumsy thing between a high-five and a handshake.

Then he left. She did not let herself cry until she heard his car starting outside.