Laina was the tree.

Her roots, hundreds of them, stretched into the earth underneath her, drinking up the moisture under the ground; her branches reached into the sky, her leaves fluttering in the winds from the North on a warm summers' night. Laina held a girl inside the hollow of her strong trunk, cradling her. The girl was sad. She had hair the colour of a pale-yellow finch. She had a patina, like the trees own bark, sneaking past her neck, it's rough beauty a pattern telling her story of survival. She cried tears like the sky dripped rain, that soaked the earth around the tree's base.

Laina was the tree.

She stood firm at the girl's back. Steady and strong, lending the familiar girl her support.

She loved the girl. She knew this the way she knew she craved sunlight and water. The way she knew when it was time to drop her leaves, time to grow her buds, time to open their flowering faces to the sky. This girl was a branch off the same tree.

Sometimes Laina was someone else, something else. But always, she was there for the girl, ever since the child wreathed in flames had called for help, called for hope, called for love so many years ago. Laina had heard; had answered.

I am here, she whispered. I love you, she whispered. I will stand with you, she whispered.

The girl, now a woman, never answered.

But this night, like so many other nights, she was there for the girl, was her shelter. The tree that hugged her in her hollow, that helped her withstand the sadness, this aching pain, her burdens. Even if she didn't know, even if she couldn't sense it, even if she would never appreciate it, Laina would find a way to be there. That's what you did for family. For your sister.

A blue fairy landed on the girl's shoulder, kissed her cheek, talked to her of heartache. How the tree was jealous of the fairy – all she had ever wanted was to talk to the girl of nothing and everything. But she could only watch. So the tree stood tall and let her leaves fall, weeping with her, watching, watching over her, as icy-blue eyes closed, as the girl drifted off to the realm of dreams.

Meanwhile, Laina was the tree.

***

Laina groaned. Her head felt like the seams of her brain were splitting open, swelling and trying to escape the confines of her skull, her temples pounding in protest. She kept her eyes glued shut, pushing her waking life away, pulling the cozy comforter over her head. She was not ready to open her eyes to her bedroom, walls plastered with posters of the Sydney Opera House, the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, the Space Needle in Seattle. Instead she wiggled towards the warmth at her back, snuggling into the radiator cuddling her backside, but there was something making her uncomfortable. Maybe she was sleeping on her phone or ... or her tablet was digging into her. She tried to push it away lazily, her hand flailing into contact with something ... warm and living. It snuggled her tighter.

She launched herself out of the bed, jumping up and around, yelling, landing on her feet in a readied attack position. A half-naked Joel lay, tangled and sprawled on a white bed in a room with walls of pine, his eyes flying open at her startled shout.

"Take it easy, woman," he mumbled. "I'm trying to get some beauty sleep over here."

"Take it easy? Take it easy!" Laina shrieked. "Why are you in my bed?!" She grabbed a pillow and launched it at Joel's head. He snatched the pillow gracefully from the air and propped it behind his head and upper torso.

Joel had a sly look on his face. "You requested my urgent, umm, assistance, my lady," he said, smirking, the implication clear. "Don't you remember?"

"I am not your lady and I would ne--," but Laina stopped mid-word, trying to recall what had happened the evening before. Sure enough, it was there, somewhere between the thrumming music and the haze ... somewhere amidst the cotton between her ears and the cotton of her sheets, her hands against his chest, her lips against his neck.

"No!" Dismay graced her face.

"Yup, you did," Joel said, nodding and grinning like a fool.

"Oh my god!" How could she? How could Laina's drugged mind betray her so thoroughly as to want this jerk? She had ... had been ... drugged, obviously. She would never invite his attentions, not ever, if she'd been of sound mind. She gawked at him, still in disbelief.

Joel coughed. "Not to dig my grave any deeper, but when you said 'God' I'm sure what you meant to say was 'Gods,'" Joel said, letting his correction sit in the air between them as he lounged in a sunny spot on the bed.

Laina's eyes widened in fury and frustration. And then dawning horror. "We ... I ... we didn't, I mean ... we didn't..." Laina squirmed and winced, "did we?"

"That would be a night you'd never forget," Joel said smugly.

Laina let out a full body sigh, sagging with relief, feeling immediately more like herself. She never would have allowed anything so unseemly to happen with such a conceited asshat, drunk or sober. She had standards. "Yes," she glared at Joel, "because of how bad you'd be. Selfish men don't make good lovers."

Laina waited for it -- the snappy comeback, the 'want to test that theory?' -- but she watched him hesitate instead. Felt the air change. It had been on the tip of his tongue, she was sure, but he'd bit back the retort. His restraint seemed very un-Joel-like. She waited, waited for him to fill the descending silence with something cheeky.

Nothing. Nada. Not a word.

Joel just shrugged, a slight frown pulling at his lips. Something felt decidedly off.

Which left Laina confused. Baffled. Befuddled.

Joel got out of the bed hastily, almost like he was trying to avoid further conversation. He had a tattooed sleeve on his left arm, an image of a boat, his boat, sailing on a stormy sea. He also had three words in a simple font stacked one on top of each other on his left pectoral muscle. He grabbed his fancy shirt from where it was strewn on the foot of the bed and pulled it on over his head before Laina could read the small words inked there.

Laina did not have any feelings whatsoever about his toned torso. She pulled her eyes away from his abs, berating herself for being persuaded by silly temptations when they belonged to such an annoying person. She tried to focus on his shift in mood, tried to figure out why he was suddenly acting so odd.

"Uhhh.. so," Joel started awkwardly, "Nothing of any significance happened between us. We just slept. And now I should go find the others," he continued, all matter-of-fact. There was no playfulness on his face. He finished speaking and then started to move, turning his back on Laina and heading towards the trap door and ladder.

"Not so fast." Her voice halted him. But he didn't turn to face her. Laina spoke to the back of his head. "Why are you being so weird if 'nothing of any significance happened?' I don't get it. Where is the condescending attitude and the self-aggrandizing jokes?" She couldn't ask why he wasn't flirting with her, that natural back and forth banter, the metronome at the heart of their conversations. Couldn't ask. Wouldn't ask. Wouldn't wonder aloud why the air, the tone, of the room had shifted.

"We didn't do anything." He said it honestly, but indifferently, still giving her the literal cold shoulder as he started moving to the trap door, started opening it, started descending. His voice had been laced with sincerity and not a trace of humour. And it was this lack of humor, this lack of jubilance, that lack of challenge that had Laina worried. But it was this aloofness that made her even more nervous.

If nothing had happened, then what had caused this sudden change in Joel's attitude? Joel was that confident, cocky guy who flirted shamelessly. Now he couldn't get away fast enough. Laina couldn't remember the details of what she'd said or done, so she simply grappled with wayward reasons for Joel's confusing behaviour, clues to his actions that were only unlocking more of her own anxieties.

She followed hot on his heels.

Had she said something truly stupid? Had she done something unforgivable that she couldn't remember? She dredged up her memories, the closeness, the discussions of how she didn't fit in, her state of virginity. Was that it? Was that why? No. It had to be something else.

"Why are you acting so strange?" Laina tried again. She called down to him as she trailed him, moving down the ladder. Joel hit the ground and held a hand up to assist her. Laina appreciated the gesture, because she really was rather clumsy. At least until she looked at him as he stared off at something else, as if his action had been by rote and not at all about her. Even though he was acting like a gentleman, Laina knew it was an act. He was a cad. Besides, he wasn't even looking at her, he was staring at Rowan, who was staring back at him from where she was sitting at the bottom of the tree, spine to the trunk, knees bent, eyes angry and red.

A silent conversation seemed to be pinging back and forth between them, something even Laina wasn't privy to.

But Rowan seemed sad. Maybe mad.

"Nothing happened," Joel said, defensively, in way of explanation. But there was desperation in his voice as he addressed Rowan, as he ignored Laina's presence beside him. Like Laina wasn't even there. "I swear. Absolutely nothing."

Absolutely nothing? Whether something had happened last night, his reaction made it clear she meant absolutely nothing to him. Laina felt, in that moment, smaller than absolutely nothing.

Rowan raised an eyebrow. "It didn't look like nothing," her eyes moved, assessing Joel's dishevelled clothing, Laina's messy hair.

"You said ..." Laina practically growled toward Joel, "we didn't do anything. So what does she mean? What didn't look like nothing?" And then, with increasing desperation, she looked back to Rowan. "Did you see us doing ... umm, something?!" There was a fierce blush moving up her cheeks.

Rowan got up. "You want to tell her?" She asked Joel.

"There's nothing to tell, like I said!" Joel looked frustrated, like this was all some misunderstanding. 

"Wait," Laina said, her eyes wide with concern. She looked panicked. "You two aren't? I mean you two haven't ..."

"No," they answered in unison, "Just friends," they said together. And for once she understood how disconcerting it could be for others when she and her twin, Will, answered together like they were one person. But she still had a bone to pick with Joel.

"So," Laina seethed, "in that case, what didn't look like nothing!?"

"Ummmm," Joel quibbled, practically pulling out his hair.

"You two were making out right about," Rowan gestured to the ground beneath her, "here."

"No," exclaimed Joel, shaking his head adamantly. "I didn't even let her kiss me, okay? We were drugged and horny. Drugged! And I behaved. Put her to bed with her innocence intact."

Laina's cheeks stained full crimson with embarrassment. Her innocence intact? Did he have to announce it like that? And had they made out? But Joel had no answers for her. He just looked at Rowan's disappointed face and kept barreling on. "Laina was practically throwing herself at me. What else was I supposed to do?" Joel, like a whining mutt, pleaded with Rowan, spouting insults like they were nothing, with zero regard for Laina's feelings in this.

She was throwing herself at him.

Throwing herself at him?!

Laina cringed. Shame creeping into her gut.

She was pretty sure she remembered his hands all over her body as well; that a part of him had wanted her very, very badly indeed. It hadn't just been her. He'd been right there along with her, eyes filled with lust. And she'd been drugged, too! Now she was next to nothing in his eyes. Not even worthy of his consideration. Just a floozy he didn't want to bother with the next day.

She felt her blood boil in her veins. Her fingernails bit into the flesh of her palms as she tried to rein in her fury.

Something let off a boom in the distance, like a tree exploding in the forest. But even that was not enough to distract Laina from her barely contained rage.

"Next time try sleeping on the floor like the dog you are, asshole!" Laina yelled at him. "I hate you, Joel Ba'leon." She glared daggers into his eyes. "If ever I thought there was more to you than false charm and pretty looks, you've certainly proved me wrong. Thanks for setting things straight for me you jerk!" With that, she spun on her heels, and fueled by righteousness she speed-walked away from the pair of them.

She whipped away angry tears as she began to jog, still half listening.

"Real smooth, Joel," she heard Rowan say. "But I'm with Laina on this one. You messed up. And I'm angry too, so don't even try it right now."

"But I did everything right!" Joel protested. "And yet somehow I'm still the one in trouble? This is ridiculous!"

Then Laina heard the solid thump of footfalls behind her, Rowan sprinting to catch up to her and leaving Joel abandoned by the tree.

"You two are impossible," he called to their backs.

Then, in a pique of frustration, he implored the many Gods or whoever was listening --because Laina certainly wasn't – and bellowed, "I CAN'T WIN!"

In fact, Laina thought, Joel had lost. Lost any chance he had ever had with her. Erased any sweet moments that she may have thought had transpired between them, moments that had been nothing more than stupid games he used to reel in his victims. She would never fall for it again. That pang she felt was nothing more than anger at herself for acting a fool.

Joel wouldn't ever 'win' with her, because Laina wasn't ever going to play again.

***

 Please vote if you enjoyed the chapter. Thank you! I would love to hear what you think, so ask me anything anytime.  Emmy :)