Jessica’s eyes didn’t waver from my face. Her blues weren’t as deep as August’s. They were lighter, profoundly analytical, and altogether uncomfortable.
“You really think so, huh?” she said, holding her hand before her as she inspected her nails. “Dying?”
I nodded, because I couldn’t think of any other explanation. Throwing up blood, having these minor heart attacks . . . my body even felt as if it were deteriorating. As if every day it functioned less and less, gradually dispelling a duty it could no longer accomplish. “Pretty sure.”
“Hm.” Her hand lowered, analytical blue eyes pinning on my face again. “I should be happy right now.”
My mouth flopped open as I stared at her, taken aback. “W-what?”
A bitter smile tugged her lips upward and she leaned back, propping her feet on the edge of my bed. “The cold-hearted bitch inside of me wants to be happy that you’re sick. Happy that you’re out of the picture and I can have August all to myself.”
She still wasn’t making much sense. “Jessica . . . what are you talking about?”
“You see!” she cried, throwing her hands up. “This is what I mean! You’re so . . . so freaking innocent and naïve and good. You don’t even know what’s going on right now!”
I clutched the blankets in tight fingers, biting my lip. “Jessica, whatever I did, I . . . I’m sorry.”
The chair rocked as she jumped up and began to pace around the room. I watched her, confused and a little terrified, just wondering what went so horribly wrong. “I’ve had a crush on August Masterson since he was ten and I was eleven,” she started, scratching furiously at her head. “I mean, for God sake, I thought we would end up getting married. But then he left for stupid Yale, and everything changed.”
This conversation, I could tell, would go nowhere good for me. She seemed rather irritated, and maybe just as confused.
“He’s back, and we get together, and it’s like nothing has ever changed. But it has, Ellie. All because of you. And I can’t even be mad at you, because you don’t even know it.”
“What?”
“Exactly my point!” she slapped a hand to her forehead, sighing dramatically. The dim light of the room caught the golden strands in her hair, and the creases marring her usually flawless face. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about this over the past couple days.”
When you’ve been avoiding me. “Think about what?”
“Keeping my distance from August.”
I blinked, uncomprehending. “Pardon?”
Jessica returned to the chair, folding her hands in her lap. “I’m. Breaking. Up. With August. I guess. I mean, we were never really officially together . . .”
“But you said you wanted to get married.”
She actually laughed, which didn’t seem to fit the situation, and had me furrowing my eyebrows in even deeper bemusement. “God, Ellie,” she murmured, shaking her head. The blues of her eyes twinkled. “I know you can be pretty oblivious sometimes, but surely you’ve seen the signs?”
“Signs for what?” I questioned exasperatedly, wishing for once somebody would just be straight with me.
“It’s not me he likes, Ellie, it’s you.”
Her words seemed to linger in the room, echoing off the walls long after she said them. You, my mind repeated. You, you, you.
“He is so damn gone for you, you know? And I just . . . I held on as hard as I could, trying to keep him away, but that was me being a bitch. We’re friends, right? I’d like to think we’re friends. You’ve been miserable and all I’ve been thinking about was how I could keep August away from you. How horrible is that of me?”
And then she started crying.
Oh, no.
There wasn’t protocol for a situation like this. What did I do? Offer the meager comfort of an understanding, emotionally-stunted soul?
Great.
“I realized,” she started again, voice shaking from her sobs, “I r-realized that . . . I couldn’t hold onto him because . . . because I never really had him in the first place.”
“Jessica . . .”
“No. No, Ellie, let me finish. Let me finish.” She sucked in a deep breath, setting a hand on my knee over the blankets. “You want to know when I knew?”
Honestly, I wasn’t entirely sure I did, but still I said, “If you want to tell me.”
“We were having sex,” she ambled on, causing a blush to rise to my cheeks. “He fucking said your name, Ellie. Whispered it. The worst part? He didn’t even realizehe said anything.”
Silence followed. Her teary gaze snapped to my wide brown eyes, expectant.
“Say something!” she shouted, making me flinch.
“I don’t know what to say,” I admitted, wrapping my arms around my stomach. “I don’t know what to say. I don’t . . . I’m so confused. This has never happened to me before.”
And it hadn’t. It just hadn’t, because I was Ellie Armstrong, and the extent of my romantic competence was whatever cheesy thing Tia watched on television. After she died and besides that . . . there was nothing.
Feeling things for August was frightening; unknown territory where I feared my every step, each new desire and realization a land mine beneath my feet. What did I do? How did I act? Did I purposefully confront the things I felt? All questions I did not have answers to. Unfortunately for someone like me, life did not come with an instruction manual.
Jessica sat in the chair, tears still rolling down her face, waiting for me to say something. This was what peopled wanted from me; to understand and sympathize, and be able to offer my input. To communicate, and just be a person. Nothing had ever been so impossible; so unachievable.
“Before everything went downhill, August and I saw a fireworks show,” I said. “He kissed me.”
She said nothing, staring blankly at my face, waiting for me to finish. I found the flat, undivided attention rather unsettling.
“It was the best feeling I ever had,” I admitted, smiling at the memory, even though it had been nothing but a nuisance to me thus far. “For the first time I didn’t feel like . . . like a freak, I guess. I felt wanted. I’ve never felt wanted before, Jessica.”
The tears in her eyes didn’t lessen, but her head bobbed in understanding. “I know, Ellie.”
“My stomach got all tied up in knots, and I couldn’t think straight. It was . . .” wonderful, explosive, confusing, unforgettable.
She stood and walked to the window, peering out. I needed her as my ally, I realized. I needed all the people I could get. Especially her, who helped me understand these things I couldn’t exactly go to August about. “My mother always told me you had to grab whatever happiness you could find in this world, because it was in danger of going extinct.” A smile graced her face. “If he makes you happy, how can I prevent that? How can I get in the way of happiness?”
I swung my legs over the side of the bed, feet touching the cold flooring. “I’m not sure what I want, to be honest,” I told her. “Happiness is a foreign concept to me.”
“Happiness is a foreign concept to everybody, Ellie. When you feel it, you just do, and you want to hold onto the thing that caused it.”
Augie.
Augie’s smile. His laugh. His narrowed eyes when something wasn’t quite right.
The way his hands could never keep still. The methodical way he shredded napkins, using the same strategy every time.
His breath blowing against your hair.
His heartbeat pounding beneath your ear.
His eyes that make you want to dive in and drown.
It happened.
How could this happen?
“Your silence is assuring,” Jessica murmured, clearing away the tears on her cheeks. “It means you’re thinking, and finally realize it’s all true.”
“No, it’s just—” But even I knew I was grasping for straws that just weren’t there. Trying to reason things out that couldn’t be explained.
“Just true, Ellie,” she murmured.
Maybe it was.
Maybe it wasn’t.
Either way, I really didn’t think that was the key issue at the moment. “Jessica.”
“Yes?”
“I don’t want to die.”
The look she gave me was a funny one. “Well, of course you don’t. Nobody does.”
“No, you don’t understand.” I closed my eyes, weaving my fingers tightly together. “All my life that’s all I’ve wanted. To either be normal or die. There’s just been so much pain. Unbearable amounts of pain that never seemed to stop. But now I . . . I don’t know.”
Jessica said nothing, running her hands through her hair as she chewed thoughtfully on her lip. It was a sad statement to admit, but nonetheless true. Normality, as previously established, was an unreachable aspiration. The only other logical conclusion was death, and for some reason the universe was insistent on keeping me alive. Maybe for a reason? Maybe to give me a fighting chance?
I felt as if I’d failed too many of the chances given to me.
Failed my town.
Failed Tia.
Failed Jim, and Esme, and always on the verge of letting down my friends.
I couldn’t do that. Disappointing August or Jessica, or Ryan or Blake would be the end of me.
“Life sucks ass,” Jessica spoke, breaking me from my thoughts. “It just does sometimes, which is why I’m forbidding you from speaking about our predicament for the rest of the night. Talk about you, Ellie. What you want and how you want to live.”
Nobody ever gave me the alternative. “Really?”
“Yes, really.” She sat down beside me. “Maybe my life wasn’t as normal as it could be, but I went to school, Ellie. I dated, had my heart broken, took exams. I did a couple years at the University of Tennessee before my familial duty to the government required me to drop out. My life has been full, you know? As full as it can be right now. I’ve been graced with opportunities and chances and you’ve had heartache. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to realize it. My mother would dislike how I’m acting.”
Her fingers twisted together, light pink nails reflecting the dim lamp light. “You’re apologetic,” I observed. “Sorry.”
A breathy laugh escaped her. “Yeah, I am.”
“I, um . . .” I reached over and set my hand on her arm, attempting comfort. “I am sorry about your parents. August told me what happened.”
She laughed again, but it was forced. “Hey, they signed up for it. Like the army, you know? If you die, it’s for a noble cause.” An indelicate snort erupted from deep within her. “Like I believe that.”
“This country saddens me,” I murmured. “Every day I watch the news and there’s so much death and sorrow. So much everywhere.”
Her elbow nudged mine. “You care a lot about other people, don’t you?”
“I do.”
“You’re a good kid, Ellie. Really good. There are not a lot of people like that left, so preserve it.”
“I just want everything to be okay.”
She clapped her hands. “And that’s where you’ll always be disappointed. Things are hardly ever okay. We have to make them that way. And even then, it’s not forever.” The front door creaked open downstairs. The sound of footsteps on the stairs echoed through the house. Jessica winked. “Make it last,” she murmured, just as the door burst open and August ambled through. He was tattered and covered in blood, holding the syringe in his hand. Blake and Ryan stumbled in behind him, not as mangled as August, but they stared at him with wide eyes.
“Dude,” Ryan said. “Dude.”
August’s eyes fell on me, unmoving.
“Dude.”
“Shut up.”
Blake was equally in awe. “What the hell were you thinking back there, man? If you’re going to mass slaughter the place, don’t leave us to clean up the freaking mess.”
August didn’t look away from my face, and too many feelings and sensations swarmed me at one time. Gone, my mind jeered. So, so gone.
“Hey, guys, why don’t we go get started on dinner?”
Jessica gave my arm a squeeze and corralled Blake and Ryan out of the room, speaking over all of their protests. The door clicked closed behind them, leaving me and August alone, and I wondered if he could hear how hard my heart pounded in the silence.
“Hey,” he said, rolling the syringe around in his hand.
A smile twitched at my lips. “Hi.”
“You, uh . . . how are you?”
I didn’t respond. There was no positive way I could answer his question.
“Right.” He walked forward, movements wooden, and sat down beside me. He reeked of blood and mildew, and my gut twisted with anxiety at the prospect of August getting hurt.
“You’re covered in blood,” I observed, angling myself slightly to face him.
“Not mine.” He plucked at his shirt. “They were some stubborn bastards.”
“Oh.”
The air between us wasn’t awkward, per se. I didn’t know what it was. And at moments like these, I almost wished I didn’t possess my newfound detector for subtleties and implications.
“Thank you for the serum,” I said, trying to fill the void. It had never been a problem for us before.
“Sure.”
More silence.
“And this is definitely what you want to do?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“It’s a pretty long needle, Ellie.”
Shivering, the memories of all the times I had been a victim of those needles swept over me. “I know.”
I was hyperaware of his presence beside me; aware of his thigh pressing against mine and his fingers as they fidgeted with the capped needle. Aware of his elbow every time it bumped mine. Of his heat, like a constant furnace turned on high, all the time, and it was so nice, because I always seemed to run a little too cold.
“Ellie.”
His voice broke me from my thoughts. I turned to him, not expecting his deep blue eyes to be so close. “Yes?”
“What’s happening to you?”
The big question.
If only there was an answer.
“I don’t know, Augie,” I whispered. “I really don’t know.”
“Are you—” He didn’t finish the sentence, words breaking off as he swallowed hard. Almost as if he just couldn’t finish the sentence. “You’re not gonna . . . you’ll be okay, right?”
Deciding moment.
Did I tell the truth? Did I look into August Masterson’s eyes and tell him I was pretty sure I was dying? How was I supposed to do this? Why couldn’t there be an instruction manual for these kinds of things?
My only alternative was lying. Because anything else would be a lie, and even though it would put him at east, how could I lie to August Masterson?
Stuck. You’re stuck.
“I can’t say,” I finally settled on, gaze burning a hole through my feet.
A worried chuckle escaped his lips. “Why not?”
“I just can’t, Augie, okay?” My eyes stung. When I pressed the pads of my fingers against my cheeks, they came up wet. “Please don’t make me.”
“Ellie, you’re scaring me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Ellie—”
But I was in the process of flinging myself at him, wrapping my arms around his neck, cutting off the rest of his words. I didn’t cry, though I wanted to, but too many tears had been shed in my life. Heck, too many tears had been shed in the last year. An ending was all I really wanted.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I breathed furiously against his neck, feeling him shift beneath me as he pulled my body closer to his. “Please don’t hate me.”
He wrapped his arms around me, hand running up and down my spine comfortingly. “I don’t hate you, El,” he murmured. “How could I ever hate you?”
“It’s so easy,” I said. “So easy.”
“Shh, it’s okay.” His hand rubbed over my back, ran through my hair, comforting me as best as he could. “It’s okay, Ellie.”
It wasn’t. But I figured he was just trying to make me feel better, so I said nothing and just soaked in the moment. Jessica said to, after all. She said to live moment by moment and make them count, and grab hold of happiness wherever you could find it. This was my happiness.
His heart pounding against mine.
His breath skirting across my neck.
His hand rubbing circles over my back.
Happy.
“Something is wrong with me,” I decided on telling him. “So, so wrong, and I don’t know what. I’m scared, Augie. I don’t know what to do.”
“I don’t know what to say,” he returned. “I wish I did, but I don’t.”
“That’s okay.” I sat back, wiping at my eyes.
“No, El.” He grabbed my hands, forcing me to look at his face. “I want you to tell me right now that it’s not okay, because it isn’t. Don’t lie, and don’t pretend. Just say it to my face.”
“Augie . . .”
“Nu-uh. Say it to me right now.”
So I licked my lips and I said, “I’m not okay. Nothing is okay. But . . . I want it to be okay.”
“There you go.” He tucked hair behind my ear. “Was that so hard?”
“A little.”
He laughed, thumb trailing down my nose and over my mouth, resting on my lower lip. Our eyes clashed and my stomach rolled and it was too much.
Too much.
Still, I tried to be strong. I tried to replay Jessica’s words in my head and accept things for what they were; even those things I couldn’t understand. But I was convinced my body and mind just weren’t meant to function that way. Maybe my inner wirings were screwed up from genetic modification. I didn’t know.
All I knew was that I wasn’t ready for this situation. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
“Augie,” I breathed.
“We need to talk,” he said, not moving his hand.
Too much, too much, too much. “About what?”
“This.”
Too much. “What do you mean?”
“I know you feel it, Ellie. Everybody else does, and it’s time we face it. The elephant in the room. The tension. It’s borderline unbearable.”
Don’t make me face it. “I—I think it’s fine.”
“Yeah?” his hand dropped and touched my stomach, and I nearly bolted out of his arms. “Point made,” he said.
“Don’t do this right now,” I pleaded. “Please, Augie.”
He surged on ahead though, clearly not seeing the absolute torment in my eyes. “I have . . . feelings, for you.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “August, please.”
“I don’t know how deep and I don’t know to what extent, but they’re there, Ellie. I know you feel the same way.”
“No,” I croaked, scrambling off his lap. “No, I don’t feel the same way. I don’t feel anything.”
“Ellie . . .”
“Just stop, August. Please. I don’t feel anything for you. I don’t feel anything for anybody.” Liar.
Fire sparked in his eyes. “No,” he rebuked. “You’re wrong. I see it on your face. You feel it. You feel it.”
“You don’t know what I feel.”
“Don’t be stubborn.”
“I’m not.”
“Ellie.”
“August.”
He released a frustrated roar, clenching his fingers through his hair. “Circles. I don’t know how to get anywhere with you without running in circles.”
In that moment, I probably made the worst decision.
Everything was becoming too much, and too much for Ellie Armstrong was never a good thing. I should have stayed and talked it out, maybe tried to pursue the actions Jessica urged, but that wasn’t me.
And so I ended up running out of the room.
August called after me, chasing me down the hall and stairs into the kitchen. The raucous caused Blake to look up from the oven, Ryan to stop juggling some apples, and Jessica to look up from her fashion magazine.
“Ellie!” August called.
“Leave me alone!” I demanded, completely overwhelmed. “Please just drop it, August!”
“How can I drop something like this?”
I didn’t have an answer for that. Not a one.
“We missed something,” Ryan muttered, nodding to himself. “Yes, we definitely missed something.”
“Shut up,” August snapped, gaze boring through me. “Ellie, talk to me. Stop running away from things you don’t understand.”
The island in the kitchen was between us, a marble slate countertop keeping us about five feet apart. “No,” I whispered. “No, August.”
His fingers curled and uncurled, jaw working back and forth with indecision. The entire kitchen was tense, waiting for the end result.
I myself was curious.
August wouldn’t physically hurt me. Ever. That much I knew.
He could devastate me emotionally, but that wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.
He could destroy you with two words and you know it.
But in the end, it wasn’t even words that sent me to my knees.
August grabbed his keys off the table, angrily shoved on his shoes, and stormed out the door. His car revved to life and roared from the driveway. A wordless departure. Nothing was said.
My heart still shattered.