Free Savage Delight by Sara Wolf

is condensed in an arrow that he’s shot right into me with his dumbo Antarctic eyes.
    “How –”
    “I was walking behind you in the hall. I followed you. I have a knack for knowing when you’re about to do something stupid.” Jack answers in clipped tones.
    “Why –”
    “Sophia. I came to the hospital for her. Now move.”
    Jack tries to maneuver around me but I stop him at each turn.
    “I’ve had years of practice being fat. We are good at blocking things. Also, floating in saltwater.”
    “Let me through.”
    The smell of mint and honey floats towards me – that same disconcerting smell of him I found in my memories earlier today.
    “See, I think I should not let you through, since you are a really bad boyfriend, and logic dictates a bad thing should not be near a good thing, so essentially, Sophia doesn’t need you around.”
    He scoffs. “You have no idea what you’re talking abo –”
    “You kissed me,” I say. “Sophia told me you kissed me. And I remembered it. A bit. And even if you saved me, and Mom, and pulled me up from the ledge or whatever, I can’t forgive you for hurting Sophia like that. I can’t forgive you for kissing someone you didn’t like. That probably hurt me, too. You’ve hurt a lot of people, haven’t you?”
    Mira and James watch us, our words like pingpong balls their heads inevitably follow. Jack is expressionless, wordless, like a recently-wiped chalkboard. I can’t read him. But tiny wisps of incredulousness give way to shock, and then his face sets in an icy mask of irritation.
    “Get out of my way,” He repeats, a deadly quality in his voice.
    “No. See, I’m a good dragon. Does your small-yet-somehow-still-functioning brain know what a dragon is?”
    “Scaly!” James chirps.
    “Breathes fire!”Mira adds.
    “I’m the dragon,” I say. “And Sophia is the princess. And it’s my job to guard her from the likes of you.”
    Jack raises a brow. “Likes of me?”
    “A bad prince.The kind that ruins princesses forever.”
    The ice-blue splinters of his eyes darken, shading over. His eyes are easier to read than his face, but not by much. Is it anger? Guilt? Frustration? No. It’s none of those. It’s helplessness.
    “You’re too late. I’ve already ruined her forever,” he says, and pushes past me with such force I don’t have time to brace. He’s long gone by the time Mira decides to speak up.
    “They call him sometimes. Naomi does. When Sophia gets really mad.”
    “What do you mean?”
    James shuffles, staring at his feet. “Sometimes…sometimes she gets weird. And mad. And when we ask about it Naomi says it’s someone else yelling, not Sophia. But it’s her voice. And then they call Jack, and he always comes no matter what time it is and she calms down and gets quiet again.”
    I watch Jack’s figure grow smaller down the hall.
     
      
    ***
     
    She remembers.
    Isis Blake remembers me.
    The world doesn’t move for me. It stopped that night in middle school. It trembled when Isis first punched me, and grew to a roil with every day I fought the war against her. And then it went still for weeks. For weeks that felt longer than years.
    Today the world shakes and it shakes with her name and her set, determined face as she looked me in the eyes and told me I was a bad prince. Today it shakes because she might think I’m terrible (you are terrible. Your hands are bloody and you are terrible ), but she remembers me. A small fragment of the old Isis - the one who recognized me and despised me months ago - shone through in her eyes. She hates me. But she remembers me.
    She remembers a kiss (which kiss which kiss which kiss the fake one from the beginning or the true one in Avery’s house?) .
    Today my world shakes. Not hard. But it moves under my feet and reminds me that yes - yes . I’m really alive. I am not ice. I am not a freak, or a monster. I am not something people are afraid of, or avoid. I am human and I have done bad things, but the