As much as I loved working with my hands and running the farm, I really should teach myself basic things like math and English.
Somehow.
Della’s voice threaded through the darkness from her single bed across the room. “Ren…?”
My head turned on the pillow to face her. The slightly less dark of her bedspread and lightness of her hair were the only things I could make out. “Yeah?”
“These school holidays…can I? Um, do you want me to…. I can show you what I learned if you want?” Her voice dwindled before coming back sharp with determination. “What I learned at school. I’ll show you. I mean, only if you want.”
My heart fisted hard.
I didn’t answer, not because she’d unmanned me or made me feel like an idiot, but because her offer was so perfectly her. So kind. So sweet.
When silence became oppressive, and I still hadn’t said yes because I was so in awe of her generous offer, she murmured, “Tomorrow, I’ll show you a couple of things. You can decide after if you want to know more.” She rolled over, giving me her back.
And I lay in the darkness, thanking her.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
DELLA
* * * * * *
Present Day
A WHILE AGO, I mentioned I’d committed all seven deadly sins starting with wrath when I hated Cassie at first sight.
I was hoping I could skip over the others as I don’t really want to reveal just how awful a person I became, but I don’t think I have a choice. Not because I’m actually rather normal and felt nothing that someone else hasn’t before me, but because I committed the rest of them all in a three-year period.
Clever, huh?
I went from innocent child to terrible human being all in the space of a few short years.
The first one I’ll mention is pride.
And that one was Ren’s fault.
I was taught at school that it was okay to be proud of achieving high marks if you’d studied hard and deserved it. It was okay to be proud of a drawing or accomplishment because that was the reward for striving to be better and succeeding. As long as you didn’t brag or boast, a bit of self-praise was encouraged.
So, armed with that free pass, I already had a complex relationship with the meaning of pride seeing as I’d flirt with the feeling on a regular basis thanks to my love of learning and ability to recall most things that the teacher said.
I had a good circle of friends—only a few who I can remember names now—but I do remember a group bullying me and calling me a teacher’s pet. Funny how I didn’t mind. I was rather glad because if I was a teacher’s pet that meant I was loved more because I did the right thing.
Or at least, that’s what I figured it meant seeing as a pet was a family’s pride and joy—not that Ren and I had one, and the barn cats that lived at the Wilsons were there as hunters to keep the grain nibble-free rather than to be cuddled and pampered.
Anyway, I’m digressing…these tangents I keep chasing are becoming worse the longer I write. If I wasn’t just going to delete this entire thing, I’d have some serious editing to do.
Anywho…
Pride.
Ren.
That’s right…get back to the story, Della.
Where can I start?
Ren was my superstar. He was my hero in all things and never more so than the day when my eyes were no longer blinded by self-obsession. The day I helped him count hay bales and tally payment was the moment I grew up a little.
I didn’t judge him or ridicule him for his lack of knowledge. I didn’t laugh like the kids at school did when someone couldn’t give an answer or screwed up a teacher’s question. I didn’t pity him or scoff that a boy so much older than me couldn’t do simple math.
It made me sad.
It hurt my heart.
Because, all this time, I’d never stopped to think about what he’d given up to grant me my dreams. He’d stayed in a place so I could learn. He’d worked in a job so I could play.
He’d never had a childhood.
Never had a week off.
Never been given the gifts that he’d given me so often and so generously.
My offer to teach him what he’d made possible for me to learn wasn’t something pure or offered out of the goodness of my heart.
No.
It was because of guilt. It was because of a child epiphany that I was literate and book smart all because of what Ren had sacrificed to make it happen.
And it hurt.
Because I’d been so selfish and only now seen the reality of what it had cost him.
I owed him. Big. Huge. Massive. So, for the next three years, I paid off that debt by teaching him everything I knew.
Every night during the school holidays, we headed to the hay loft where we’d first slept and sat on hay bales while I pulled out the box full of old work-books and texts that Ren insisted we keep.