Dreamwalker's Bride - Chapter 228

Chapter 228: Compassion
Ford watched Mia take in the information. It was a risk telling her the truth, but she seemed to hate Martin. She would want to go against his wishes just like Ford did… or so he hoped.

“Why didn’t you burn it?” She stared at him.

“I couldn’t,” Ford told her. “The man was wealthy. If he’s gone now, why can’t I take that and start a better life? Have everything I never did as a child?”

“You can have all that anyway,” Mia frowned. “You could make a life for yourself.”

“With what?” He gestured down at the borrowed clothes he was wearing. “When you found me I was half dead. I have nothing of my own. No money for land, nor any skills beyond mining.”

She drew in a shaky breath, apparently distracted from her memories for a moment.

“You’re much better now,” She said. “Much healthier, more able…”

“I don’t have what you have,” He told her. “A home, a family…”

“You could,” She insisted. “These things take time to build, but you’re young. You can do it.”

“You’ll never understand,” A measure of anger entered his voice at the spoiled girl. For a moment, in her brokenness, he thought she might actually care to help someone else. “I guess you only care to help others when it doesn’t cost you anything or take away the comforts of home.”

Mia looked so genuinely wounded that Ford almost felt bad about the verbal jab, but he couldn’t take back the truth.

“I’m sorry you’re hurting,” She said to him, “but right now, so am I.”

She stood to her feet and brushed off her skirt with a sudden dignity that surprised him.

“Mia, I…” He was going to lose all the trust and goodwill he’d built between them. His heart clenched. His last real chance at changing his life, his destiny, was about to walk away.

“I forgive you,” She told Ford. “You weren’t raised to care about others’ needs, but you should really start trying.”

“I also wasn’t raised by people who lied to me,” He shot back, and she flinched as if he’d struck her.

“You’re right. I don’t know what to think about that,” She shook her head and began to walk away.

The bucket Ford sat on was very low to the ground, and his splint prevented his knee from bending very well, He grunted as he pulled on the crutch and tried to stand.

Suddenly, Mia was beside him, taking his arm and pulling him up.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have tried to leave you without any help,” She said quietly. “Where are you headed?”

“Back in the house, I suppose,” He looked at how dim it was getting outside now that the sun had set. He didn’t care to be on his crutch out here in the dark. Soon he would try walking without it, but the doctor had told him six weeks was his prediction based on the bone and the swelling.

He nearly tripped over some uneven ground on his first step, and Mia’s hand retook its place on his arm. It felt warm there.

Together they slowly, quietly made their way back into the house. Mia’s face was turned away from him, and he couldn’t see her expression.

It was strange that, upset as she was, she still stopped to think of him and help him.

‘I know you’re hurting, but I’m hurting, too,’ she’d told him. The words stuck in his mind. His resentment, his pain, his anger at the world consumed him. Seeing everything wonderful about Mia’s life pushed that hate deeper.

He stirred the hot embers. How dare she think that any hurt she felt could compare to what he’d been through!

But then, at least one of his major formative experiences was something she apparently had shared. He wondered how old she was when she was trapped by Martin in the cave. They seemed around the same age… and that would have been around the same time he was first given a job in the mine.

It had terrified him at first, going deep into the ground. They didn’t have a hat small enough for him, and the way it shifted around on his head often made his candle go out.

He would panic until another miner sighed in contempt and brought their candle over to relight his.

If there had been no way to get light back, and instead of voluntarily being down in the mine to earn enough money to feed himself, he’d been kidnapped and entombed… He glanced at Mia. She was still looking at the earth. She kicked a rock out of his way before he even noticed it. It bothered him more than he could say that the hate he felt for her at first was slipping beyond his grasp.

He was recognizing more and more that, though she was sometimes awkward and a little careless with her words, she was a kind person.

Ford didn’t like that. It was easier to hate her than to begin to feel any sort of compassion or empathy for the woman against his side, helping him towards the house.

“I’m sorry,” The words fell from his lips, unbidden. “I shouldn’t have pressured you to help me.”

He grimaced at how insincere that sounded to his own ears, but he did actually mean it. The pressure had made her more upset. Mia paused their steps and looked him in the face.

Since she was still supporting and leading him by holding his arm, they were quite close, and he held his breath. How would she take his words? Would she see through him?

“I understand… or at least, I understand, a little bit,” She sighed and looked away. “To want something so badly, and then to have it snatched away, must feel like such a betrayal.”

“I’ve never trusted anyone enough to be betrayed, at least, not since I was very young,” Ford’s expression hardened.

“That sounds lonely,” Mia looked up at him again, sadness for him in her eyes. Pity?

“Is loneliness worse than betrayal?” He asked roughly, and she pressed her lips together in thought.

“Today, I don’t know.”