Chapter 30 -- This is Your Romance on Drugs, Any Questions?

Next!

Eden watches Bramford cook his drugs... I mean boil up the herbal concoction "with dreamy eyes."  Maybe hoping he'll share his fix with her, I dunno, though I notice that Foyt has completely and conveniently dropped the fact that Eden is hooked on oxy.  Drug addiction is a serious business, and you can't just stop using a powerful drug you've gotten yourself dependent on without serious side effects that last a LOT longer than a few days.  Even cigarette addiction can have some nasty withdrawal symptoms.  The fact that Eden is showing no ill effects now, mere days after stopping oxy, is pretty unrealistic.

Anyhow, we get a paragraph describing the jungle and the wood smoke, then we get Eden thinking about life in the Combs.

Her old life in the tunnels with the ever-present voice in her head and the dark coating that fit like a second skin seemed nothing more than a bad dream.  Had it really happened?  Only the present felt real, and comforting.  Somehow, Eden believed she and Bramford always had been together in the jungle -- how had he put it -- as partners. -- p 210

Your life in the tunnels was only a few days ago, Eden.  And not too long ago you were freaking out about the jungle, hating Bramford, and wanting to get a World-Band and go home.  Ugh... I swear Eden has multiple personalities, she's not written consistently at ALL.

Bramford comes over to retie the ropes around her broken ribs, something he has to do one-handed since his other hand is wounded and quite possibly infected if the "angry red streaks... like just accusations of her stupidity" are anything to go by.  Does Eden help him at all?  Nope, she just is "happy for an excuse to lean against his warm, bare chest."  Seriously?

Ironhide's had enough of your slag...

"How's the pain?" he said.

She put on a brave face.  "It only hurts when I breathe."

"Take shallow breaths."

"I am."  Except when you look right through me. -- p. 211

"It Only Hurts When I'm Breathing" by Shania Twain

"Look Right Through Me" by Revis

When your romantic dialogue can double as sappy love-song lyrics, maybe you need to rewrite it to be a bit more realistic.

Bramford purrs as he finishes tying the knots -- again, jaguars don't purr -- and Eden wonders why he can't always be like this.  Maybe if you stopped trying to deliberately tick him off, he'd be like this more often.  But then, he's at his most likable when he's ticked off at you, so please, by all means, keep antagonizing him...

Finally Bramford says the bejuco de oro is calling him and asks if Eden's ready.  She protests "do I look like I'm ready?" and he assures her she is even if she doesn't know it.  He also warns her that the herbs will "speak" through him and test both him and her.  Um... plants aren't sentient, and that's the hallucinogens making you hear things, not some jungle spirits.  When did this book decide to veer into straight-up fantasy?  (Aside, of course, from the fantasies of reversed racism and geneticists being able to turn humans into cat-people...)

Eden, who isn't taking the drug, protests that she's going to be tested.

"But I"m not part of this."

"You're here for a reason.  Try to understand."

"I'm only here because you kidnapped me."  It was a fact, though for once Eden presented it without malice.

"But you came along, didn't you?" he said, with equal matter-of-factness.

"I had no choice," she said softly.

He looked off into the distance as he spoke.  "In everything we do there's always a choice.  We can choose to see ourselves as victims of circumstance.  But when we act beyond our personal needs we become part of something greater.  The choice is ours." -- p. 211-212

Not a bad message... it's too bad it's buried deep within THIS book, far deeper than I'm sure most wise and sane people are willing to dig.  (Yes, I'm hinting that I might be neither wise nor sane...)  And it's too bad it's being used by a jaguar-furry to justify getting high in the middle of a dangerous jungle and leaving a girl with no survival skills or instinct whatsoever alone and defenseless.  So long, likable Bramford, you were nice while you lasted...

Eden thinks that Bramford's talk is "riddles... as mystifying as love."  Because of course love can't exist in a dystopia, right?

Bramford shook his head, as if to say, I tried.  -- p. 212

One last jab from likable Bramford before he goes on his "trip"... and then he takes the gourd of drug-stew and drinks up.  And then starts retching, shaking, and staggering like a drunk.  I've looked up this stuff (apparently it's also called boa vine, ayahuasca, or its Latin name of banisteriopsis caapi, which I'm surprised Eden hasn't used yet), and none of these side effects are listed.  My guess is Foyt just went for the most commonly-known effects of ingesting any potentially toxic substance and to heck with actually doing in-depth research...

Eden keeps shouting at Bramford, but he doesn't respond.  Well, he DID warn her that he'd be leaving her alone, so I'm not sure why she's surprised.  She takes a moment to gawk at "his magnificent, inert form" because of COURSE we have to ogle the jaguar-man while he's unconscious, then settles in to guard him and prays she'll make it to dawn.  Hey jungle, now would be a really good time for another anaconda or a REAL jaguar to come in...

After who knows how long of Eden watching Bramford twitch and moan, he starts making sounds that Eden thinks might be "shamanistic language."  Or maybe they're just babbling from a brain that isn't functioning well enough to form proper speech?  For being skeptical of gods and shamanistic stuff, you're sure quick to believe in this stuff, girl...

Eden also wonders if Bramford will lose his fight against the great snake spirit (again called by the Aztec name because of COURSE everyone in Central and South American is/was Aztec, right?) and worries he'll be ressurected as an "ugly piggy tapir."  Even now Eden is obsessed with beauty and ugliness.  *sigh*  Our heroine, ladies and gentlemen...

Besides, tapirs can be cute...

Eden decides to call Bramford by his first name, Ronson, but gets no response either.  (Ronson?  Seriously?  At least it's not Peach or Ashina...)  So she decides to hold his hand until this whole thing blows over.  And of course she decides her hand belongs in his, "even if his was paw-like."  Why are you suddenly deciding that you're this guy's soulmate when you've spent much of the book hating his guts?

And of course, because TWU WUV, Bramford squeezes her hand back.  And finally starts talking lucidly.

"Please, don't go," he said, though Eden hardly recognized the angst-ridden voice.

"What?" she said.

"Promise me you won't leave."

Bewildered, Eden replied.  "Of course not."

"Say it."

"Okay.  I promise I won't leave."

"But you did," Bramford said, his face lined with pain.  "You deceived me." -- p. 214

Eden feels guilty for selling Bramford out to Jamal (took you long enough, girl) and says she only wanted to survive.  Bramford said he would have protected her, and she counters that he would have cut her and her father loose the moment Dr. Newman finished his work.  Bramford protests he would have given his life for her father, even going so far as to say "you don't understand how important he is to me," and wow, is Foyt trying to throw some Ho Yay at her readers or what?  It's like she's TRYING to bait readers into a shipping war, if this book had any legitimate fans.

"...you're still afraid... tell me why."

"Look at me.  I'm..."  Did she have to say it?  "I'm not strong like you."

"But I'm teaching you and you've made good progress."

"You can't understand what it's like for me or him."

"I realize that now," he said, regretfully.  "I've suffered, but I'm better for it.  I'm sorry I hurt you.  Both of you." -- p. 215

When has Bramford ever hurt Dr. Newman or Eden?  It seemed like he was a pretty freakin' good boss to both of them, even granting them privileges other white people didn't get and protecting them from harassment.  Bramford has nothing to be sorry about here -- he's just being forced to say it because Foyt wants to beat him into being the perfect love interest for her Mary Sue.

Bramford further reveals that he brought the two of them here because the FFP would have taken Dr. Newman, and he'd laid out a precise plan to save both of them -- a plan Eden screwed up by betraying them to Jamal.  Instead of being sorry, Eden just expresses wonder that Bramford actually has a heart.

"You did it all for us?"

"For who else?" Bramford said.

"Not for power?"

"What is power to me without love?"

Love?  The word exploded inside of Eden.  Was it possible that Bramford loved her? -- p. 216

*sigh*  Alas, poor decent character that was Bramford... I knew him.

The fact that I have the opportunity to use this meme in a 

Revealing Eden post and not for Hamlet's Father

is just criminal...

Bramford further reveals that he's loved Eden all this time and has been trying to protect her all along, even during the Moon Dance.  And here I thought it was just proof that Bramford was a decent human being.  Of COURSE there's no way a male protagonist can ever just be nice to a female protagonist -- it has to be LOVE, of course.  Bleh...

We get a random Emily Dickinson poem -- "Wild Nights, Wild Nights" -- and Eden falls into his arms with an overdramatic "Oh, Ronson!"  And then end chapter.

Welp... I can only hope one of two things at this point:

1. That the romance finally being set in stone means the constant bickering and insulting and "I hate you but you're hot" stuff will come to an end, or
2. That they both wake up in the morning and the whole love spiel was just the drugs talking and Bramford's instead going to just leave her in the woods because why not.

Knowing my luck, however, neither of the above is going to happen.  *sigh*  I need drugs -- I mean chocolate.

No birds were harmed in the making of

these images (seriously, look it up, it's from

a movie and it's CGI'd in...)