In Other Lands

by Sarah Rees Brennan

“I love you very dearly,” said Serene. “I would gladly die for you. But the kind of love needed for courtship . . .” “It’s fine if you don’t feel ready for courtship,” Elliot broke in. He hated himself for being so pathetic. He wished he could be nobody at all, as long as he could stop being himself and feeling like this. “I don’t think I could ever feel it,” Serene continued doggedly, as if he had never spoken. “Not for me,” Elliot finished for her, when she could not seem to. They could both hear the bitterness in his voice. “I’ll stop,” Elliot said. “I won’t be any more trouble. I won’t keep bothering you with—with feelings that aren’t your responsibility. But I need—I need to hear you say it. Could you just look at me and say it.” Serene was a soldier, before she was anything else. She was brave and never backed down from a challenge. She met his eyes when she spoke, and he saw how sorry she was to say it. “I do not think I could ever feel that way about you.” Elliot drew in a long shuddering breath. He’d asked for it, as he had asked to be hit once when he thought she and Luke might be dead. “I understand.”