Chapter 14

Annie and I never talk about what happened. She never apologizes. And, try as I might, I cannot hold onto my anger. I think to myself, what would I do, if someone realized the truth about who I was? Wouldn't I panic and reach for any kind of blackmail, too?

She rejoins my morning jogs in silence.

Truthfully, a part of me is glad that she does.

There's a half-formed scene that comes to mind every morning now, as I jog in silence next to Annie and try to find a way to push words past the walls in my mouth. It's of my other lifetime, with the woman I died for. I can't remember how it starts. Why we're even mad in the first place. But it's snowing, just barely, mid argument. It's one of the rare dustings of precipitation we get in the winter. The kind that'll be gone before the sun wakes us up in the morning. We fall silent, throats scraped raw by whatever admonitions we've just expelled.

Then she tilts her head back, opens her mouth, and lets a snowflake fall onto her awaiting tongue. I'm smiling without realizing it. She turns, a ballerina in a box, music in motion. "You're smiling, A–"

Snow flurries in my memory, like a record skipping parts of a track.

I feel my cheeks stretch wider to accommodate the growth in my enamored expression. "I can't help it."

She smiles, saunters closer. "Even when we're fighting?"

"Even when."

Only when Annie shoots me a weird look do I realize that I've been grinning, breathless, as we jog.

To anyone but an olive farmer, when an olive is damaged, it is discarded. People see a tree with half of its crop just south of perfect and pity the farmers, the matron, the daughter roaming the line between those two sides. My mother recognizes broken olives for what they are: alternative sources of profit. The farmers recognize them as purposeful, too, in their own way. But troublesome to prepare, hard to prime.

My job was pressing damaged olives for their oils.

The farmers championed the good crop, the bulk of what my mother's fortune built itself up on. I was cheap labor–free labor, really, because working the presses was a chance to have time to myself. And, when the press broke…

There was a carpenter in town.

And there was his daughter.

My hands were splitter-ridden and my heart was shy and full.

I am forgetting her, but for now, as I sit across from Reiner and take today's bite of medicine, all I can think about is her trying to eat a raw olive. Her face puckered up, twists as she swears and exclaims at how bitter it is. I roll the taste around in my mouth, almost laughing at the memory until Reiner locks eyes with me. His eyebrows twitch with confusion; the memory evaporates. My face flickers back to stoicism. I drain my drink, finish my food, and stand up. I feel eyes on me the entire time I wander away from Reiner's table and slip into the seat across from Bertholdt.

He says nothing as I wedge myself onto the bench. Instead we watch people filter out of the mess hall, shuffling out to get their winter apparel. He scrapes a fork along his plate. I cup my cheek in my hand and prop my elbow up on the table. My braid slips off my shoulder, tumbles. I look down and study it, running my hands along the interwoven strands, idly scouring for split ends.

The conversations in the hall lull to a stop. When I look up, the hall is virtually empty. Bertholdt is watching me.

"Well?"

I bristle, against myself. "What?"

His knuckles rap against the table–or, not the table. He's cast his plate to the side and replaced the spot it occupied with his book, opened to the first few pages. "Did you bring yours?"

"Oh. Yeah." I toss my braid back up over my shoulder, shift my weight, and set my copy up onto the table.

Bertholdt has incredibly long fingers, slender palms. His finger pads run down one page, curl the edge up to separate it from the rest of the pages. I squint to read the illegible scrawl upside-down to try and find where in the book he's oriented himself. He notices my neck straining a little bit. "It'd be easier for me to teach you if you were over here, you know."

I feel my lips purse and my body jeer back fractionally. "Here's fine."

Bertholdt sighs. "Aliva." For a moment, I think that'll be the end of it, but he doesn't stop there. "You learn less when your guard is up."

I can't help but snort at that. "I can't imagine you finding any time to learn, then. Too busy stealing medicine from the perpetually ill."

I imagine that Annie would ignore the comment; Reiner would sigh it away. But Bertholdt only cocks his head to the side. "I have Annie and Reiner. We watch each other's backs."

"Of course. How could I forget."

"Who watches yours, Aliva?"

I feel icy, on guard. Defensive. I think of the version of me who tried, even for a second, to reach out to Armin. My own words echo back over and over in my cranium.

Do you know me well enough to be my friend?

My silence is my undoing. He was there, when Eren dropped that bomb in the cabins last season. He knows. Of course he knows. And now my inability to answer has confirmed it. His voice slips lower. His fingers pinch that single page, insufferably unreadable. "…Has anyone?"

I'm embarrassed by the shame that heats my face. I look away. "Once." Olives, sunshine. Tender caresses. Soft words. Gentle smiles. The pink pair of tweezers she pressed into my palm.

For those pesky splinters.

Didn't your father teach you to sand the presses before you sold them off to orchards?

She laughs. But then I wouldn't have met you.

I'm angry again. God, I'm angry. I'm forgetting the person I loved because I died. How is that fair? How is it fair that I've been robbed both of life and of memory? And I'm ashamed to say it, but that anger escapes me. "I thought I could. I don't know. I tried again. With Annie–but how well did that serve me?"

Bertholdt sighs. "That's not fair."

"Is it?"

His book closes firmly. "Either I teach you, Aliva, or you let me go so I can get my winter uniforms."

For a moment my comebacks fail me. I ache to argue. To prod the splinters, not pluck them. But I need knowledge more than I need temporary relief. My anger is not a solution that lasts. This is. So I sigh, wave my white flag, and relocate myself into the seat next to Bertholdt. I reopen my book and try to find the page that matches Bertholdt's the closest.

The corner of his mouth juts upwards and he snorts. "Here." He reaches over, and I'm nervous for a moment–but he only shifts mine a few pages over. He doesn't flip into unprompted territory; doesn't even let a single nail graze over the latter half of the book. Leaning over into my proximity, I catch a subtle whiff of white tea and pepper. I can't tell if I think the combination is appealing or not.

"Why did you agree to help me?"

I'm not sure why I asked. But I'm looking at him, and he's looking at me, and suddenly all I can think about is how unfairly smooth his complexion is. Seriously. What is he, a model masquerading as a military man?

Bertholdt exhales; the air stirs on my face. He looks away and taps the book. "Okay. Lesson one."

A/N: Short chapter for now! Consider it a pre-emptive apology for how busy I'm going to be in the next two weeks. Not sure how much free time I'll have while I'm taking care of my little to-do list. But ONCE I'M DONE WITH IT :))))

ALSO MY BFF MADE A PLAYLIST FOR THIS FIC AND I AM SO VERY FLATTERED ALSKNDASDJFBAJSF