Found:
Disquiet.
I hate opening a new ledger. I hate the way the pages curl, never settling to offer a decent writing surface until one is further into the book. I hate the blankness that stares back at me, offering no insight or reference. I hate...
I hate what I have done and what I am about to do.
It was never my intention to see him again so soon. It was never my intention to run into him here or now. I was never my intention to say the things I said or feel the way I do now. But intentions are just that. Sometimes they get away from us, lost in events that transpire, brushed away or altered by the fortune, good or bad.
I crossed the little wooden bridge into Kingsfell and there he was! My heart soared without my bidding and I ran to him. Stupid. I was so pleased to see him, so very happy to see his face, to feel his strong arms again, that I let myself think it could be serendipity at play. Hadn't I wanted to see him, deep down beneath the callous disregard that I force upon myself? Hadn't I wanted the chance to tell him that my mind had changed, that I wanted and needed his help? Hadn't I wanted the opportunity to push past my stubborn nature, my self-imposed solitude, my inability to turn to others? Hadn't I wanted him with me?
It was as I had feared, as I had known it would be. He refused me. Even when I offered to wait for a set time in a camp ahead, even when I sought a compromise that could allow him to fulfill his duties and still join me, he refused. I had known he would. Hadn't I written such in the pages of my last ledger? Yet still, I put myself out on the line, I allowed myself to show weakness and....
We spoke for hours after. He needled and goaded, as he always does, seeking answers from me that he would not give in return. I gave them, as best I could.
Be more open, she had advised. Although the words were not directly spoken, the message was clear. Show him who you are behind the facade, below the jokes and smiles that you wear. Show him who you really are.
Ah, Neyaa, my dear sweet friend. How wrong you were to say this! I tried. I truly tried. I did my best to let him in, to let him see the truth of me and, as I feared, it did not go well. He accused me of manipulation, of trying to make him feel guilty! He thinks so lowly of me that I would stoop to such base and childish tactics!
Or does he?
Was it merely a way to steel himself against something so different to what he thinks he knows? Was it, in truth, an effort to push me away for his own sake? His resolve had wavered more than once. His wish to come with me, at odds with what he believes he must do, was spoken and seen. This denial of his own desires, this refusal to do as he wants when faced with the belief that something else is necessary... How is this any different to the way I have conducted my own internal affairs for so long?
It hurt. I must admit that, even if only to these pages. It hurt deeply that he would say such a thing, that he would think it, that he would turn his back upon me even as I fought my own fears, my so deeply ingrained need to stand alone against all odds. It pained me that he would take those cracks in my armour, freely shown, and push a blade so deeply into each. In my anger, I took my old ledger from Steel's saddlebag and threw it at his feet. I sought to offer him truths of this past year, things consigned to paper long before. He couldn't say I'd written them only to please or persuade him, or merely to fool myself. Surely, in reading, he would realise that what he told himself was disingenuousness was, in fact, nothing of the sort?
It was probably a mistake to do so. But if nothing else, if he only uses it as kindling as I suggested in the end, then at least some good came of it.
We parted in anger, the passion that burns so heatedly between us can so easily go both ways. I regret that now that I am more calm. A part of me wishes to turn back, to find him, to set this sorry mess straight and seek some form of resolution. I want to, but I question the wisdom of it. Perhaps it is better this way. Perhaps he will find the clarity he seeks in my absence, in his anger and disdain, in the work ahead.
I tell myself these things but I can't shake the feeling that I'm making the same old mistakes. I can't help but feel that in leaving as I am, in leaving at all and for such a length of time, that I will lose what could have been with him just as surely as I did in years past with another.
Despite that concern, despite that desire to hold onto something that was never mine, I will go. Wish or not, he needs me to. Wish or not, I need me to.
Still, regardless of his protests, I will do as I said I would. I will wait at the foot of Weathertop for a set number of days and, when he inevitably fails to join me, I will continue on in the certain knowledge that I am, and always will be, alone.
