The Survivors: Point of Origin (book 2)

Human Contact, pt. 1

“The apology for London, I’ll take. I won’t lie, I was pretty bummed. But you have nothing to apologize for in Tupelo. It was a fantastic weekend, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world,” he assured me. He looked me in the eye for a moment as we sat, facing each other. Oddly, my mind played a memory of Everett looking into my eyes the night we’d first kissed in Twin Falls, when I had counted to see how long we held each other’s gaze. We’d made it to sixteen.

“I’m really glad you’re here,” Cole said. I started counting, but I made it to only four before I deflected. “I’ve been worried about you,” he admitted.

“Why?” I asked, now nervous. It didn’t end well for me when others started worrying.

He was saying just what he was thinking, as he was thinking it, so I was getting very little lead on our conversation. This was a tactic he used to keep himself from backing down from what he wanted to say before he could lose his nerve. It made my life, in that moment, exponentially more difficult.

“It didn’t seem like you, what happened in London. You weren’t the same as you were when we met. It seems that something tough is going on in your life. And if that’s the case, I’m concerned,” he said sincerely.

I didn’t say anything. This happened with him: He could see through me when I wanted to hide.

He went on, “Corrina thinks the same thing, but you won’t talk to her about whatever it is. We all know something is wrong, we just don’t know what.”

“When’s the last time you talked to Corrina or Felix?” I asked. I needed to know if he knew about Everett. If he did, he hadn’t let on.

“Weeks? Months? I don’t know. I’ve been pretty busy at work. I got pretty busy with a project at work, so it’s been a while, I hate to admit,” Cole said. I relaxed. He had no idea Everett Winter existed, much less that I had run out on Corrina and Felix the way I had.

“I’m surprised you think about me that much,” I said honestly.

You’re kidding, right? “I haven’t stopped thinking about you since the moment I met you,” he said. Before that, even.

“I think about you,” I said. That was true but probably not the right thing to say. I didn’t think of him the way he thought of me, that was clear. Or if I did, I wasn’t supposed to.

The memory of Everett and me in Twin Falls persisted as Cole and I chatted. I suppose some part of my mind was trying to make me feel guilty, or was simply trying to remind me of the butterflies I could feel with Everett — like those I was reticent to admit I was having just then with Cole. But that’s not how the rest of me took it. Before Everett and I had truly kissed that night, I’d asked him to kiss my forehead like Cole had done at the wedding. I suppose this had been to even the score in my mind. Compare the two side-by-side.

It would be only fair, then, if I didn’t write off my feelings for Cole until I’d had a chance to be with him like I’d been with Everett. Deconstructed. Intimate. Attached.

I put my hand to my forehead, as if to erase these thoughts. Even I could tell that was a dangerous line of thinking.

“Everything all right?” Cole asked, laughing nervously at my expression.

“Fine, fine,” I said quickly.

An odd silence hung in the air between us. Then Cole said, “Sadie, do you think you’ll ever settle down?”

“No,” I said. Not until I’m a human, I said to myself, which was something I didn’t count on anymore.

He reacted instinctually, flinching visibly. That was not the answer he anticipated. “Nothing would motivate you to?”