Folio Two, Page Fifty-One (svegra mos sjekron tal-itz)
I went to the ravine to play with Sukua. He wanted to talk and talk, but I worked hard to tire him out so he’d keep quiet. Thoughts ran so quickly through my head that I struggled to remain aware of my surroundings. I found myself in the treetops in what seemed like seconds. He staggered up behind me, chest heaving like someone with asthma.
When we stopped, I clasped his hands and kissed him on the cheek. “Would you do what everyone else thinks you should do or what you want to do.”
“What?”
“Say, if you wanted to become a doctor but your family preferred manufacturing. Come on, don’t look like a dumb fish.” I let go of his hands pinched his forearm and stuck my tongue out when his eyes widened. “And don’t tell me you’d just ask your Matriarch.”
“I — I’d go with what I wanted to do. Sneaky so no one would know until I’d got the degree.” He rubbed his arm. “You pinch hard.”
“What does your Matriarch want you to do?”
He put his arms behind his back and looked directly at me. I tried not to stare at the streak of mud on his cheek and the drops of water falling from the trees as the wind rushed through their leaves, but I couldn’t keep my gaze steady. The bird in the tree behind me sang slightly flat, but I liked the melody.
We stood in awkward silence for a few moments. It’s too soon to marry us off, I thought. We couldn’t do it behind my family’s back for a few years, right? Besides, the gift couldn’t have meant anything else. Every girl my age received gifts from families with young boys. Not short swords — usually perfume or a gyena — but still gifts. I still hadn’t told Aunt Nikis and had hidden the box in my closet.
“Are you just a groom boy?” It’s really difficult — the word hasn’t been used in ages. Ghemda, ‘boy who makes happiness’ — that’s what we called it. Perhaps the term still exists, but I think arranged marriage practices were reformed a while ago to give men more powers of consent?
I — I don’t — but — I broke the narrative again. It’s so hard to jump into things when I start thinking and analyzing. Remembering the little things sometimes trips me up, and you have no idea how many times I have had to stop myself from asking if one shop where I bought sweets with my allowance is still there or if the abandoned theater filled with vermin finally received enough of a vote to tear down. And Sukua. I — it brings back everything I have ever felt about him and pulls the rest with it, all of the agony and regret. You don’t know how much he meant to me.
A ghemda does no more than secure a family’s position. He receives training in etiquette from a young age and generally obtains several cultural hobbies by the time he turns eleven or twelve, such as dance. Everyone knows what his family has trained him for.
“I hope they let you do what you want,” I said hastily. Enough with playing — I’d had enough. Climbing didn’t change much from tree to tree, so unless someone let me have at a building I didn’t want it.
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