I bite my trembling lip.
He freezes in place, watching me, waiting.
“Adam,” I breathe, trying to keep my voice steady. “I will always, a-always love you—”
“No,” he says. “No, don’t say that—don’t say that—”
And I’m shaking my head, shaking it fast and hard, so hard it’s making me dizzy but I can’t stop. I can’t say another word unless I want to start screaming and I can’t look at his face, I can’t bear to see what I’m doing to him—
“No, Juliette—Juliette—”
I’m backing away, stumbling, tripping over my own feet as I reach blindly for the wall when I feel his arms around me. I try to pull away but he’s too strong, he’s holding me too tight and his voice is choked when he says, “It was my fault—this is my fault—I shouldn’t have kissed you—you tried to tell me but I didn’t listen and I’m so—I’m so sorry,” he says, gasping the words. “I should’ve listened to you. I wasn’t strong enough. But it’ll be different this time, I swear,” he says, burying his face in my shoulder. “I’ll never forgive myself for this. You were willing to give it a shot and I screwed everything up and I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—”
I have officially, absolutely collapsed inside.
I hate myself for what happened, hate myself for what I have to do, hate that I can’t take his pain away, that I can’t tell him we can try, that it’ll be hard but we’ll make it work anyway. Because this isn’t a normal relationship. Because our problems aren’t fixable.
Because my skin will never change.
All the training in the world won’t remove the very real possibility that I could hurt him. Kill him, if we ever got carried away. I will always be a threat to him. Especially during the most tender moments, the most important, vulnerable moments. The moments I want most. Those are the things I can never have with him, and he deserves so much more than me, than this tortured person with so little to offer.
But I’d rather stand here and feel his arms around me than say a single thing. Because I’m weak, I’m so weak and I want him so much it’s killing me. I can’t stop shaking, I can’t see straight, I can’t see through the curtain of tears obscuring my vision.
And he won’t let go of me.
He keeps whispering “Please” and I want to die.
But I think if I stay here any longer I will actually go insane.
So I raise a trembling hand to his chest and feel him stiffen, pull back, and I don’t dare look at his eyes, I can’t stand to see him looking hopeful, even if it’s for only a second.
I take advantage of his momentary surprise and slackened arms to slip away, out of the shelter of his warmth, away from his beating heart. And I hold out my hand to stop him from reaching for me again.
“Adam,” I whisper. “Please don’t. I can’t—I c-can’t—”
“There’s never been anyone else,” he says, not bothering to keep his voice down anymore, not caring that his words are echoing through these tunnels. His hand is shaking as he covers his mouth, as he drags it across his face, through his hair. “There’s never going to be anyone else—I’m never going to want anyone else—”
“Stop it—you have to stop—” I can’t breathe I can’t breathe I can’t breathe “You don’t want this—you don’t want to be with someone like me—someone who will only end up h-hurting you—”
“Dammit, Juliette”—he turns to slam his palms against the wall, his chest heaving, his head down, his voice broken, catching on every other syllable—“you’re hurting me now,” he says. “You’re killing me—”
“Adam—”
“Don’t walk away,” he says, his voice tight, his eyes squeezed shut like he already knows I’m going to. Like he can’t bear to see it happen. “Please,” he whispers, tormented. “Don’t walk away from this.”
“I-I wish,” I tell him, shaking violently now, “I wish I d-didn’t have to. I wish I could love you less.”
And I hear him call after me as I bolt down the corridor. I hear him shouting my name but I’m running, running away, running past the huge crowd gathered outside the dining hall, watching, listening to everything. I’m running to hide even though I know it will be impossible.
I will have to see him every single day.
Wanting him from a million miles away.
And I remember Kenji’s words, his demands for me to wake up and stop crying and make a change, and I realize fulfilling my new promises might take a little longer than I expected.
Because I can’t think of anything I’d rather do right now than find a dark corner and cry.
TWENTY-FOUR
Kenji finds me first.
He’s standing in the middle of my training room. Looking around like he’s never seen the place before, even though I’m sure that can’t be true. I still don’t know exactly what he does, but it’s at least become clear to me that Kenji is one of the most important people at Omega Point. He’s always on the move. Always busy. No one—except for me, and only lately—really sees him for more than a few moments at a time.
It’s almost as if he spends the majority of his days … invisible.
“So,” he says, nodding his head slowly, taking his time walking around the room with his hands clasped behind his back. “That was one hell of a show back there. That’s the kind of entertainment we never really get underground.”
Mortification.
I’m draped in it. Painted in it. Buried in it.
“I mean, I just have to say—that last line? ‘I wish I could love you less’? That was genius. Really, really nice. I think Winston actually shed a tear—”
“SHUT UP, KENJI.”
“I’m serious!” he says to me, offended. “That was, I don’t know. It was kind of beautiful. I had no idea you guys were so intense.”
I pull my knees up to my chest, burrow deeper into the corner of this room, bury my face in my arms. “No offense, but I really don’t want to t-talk to you right now, okay?”
“Nope. Not okay,” he says. “You and me, we have work to do.”
“No.”
“Come on,” he says. “Get. Up.” He grabs my elbow, tugging me to my feet as I try to take a swipe at him.
I wipe angrily at my cheeks, scrub at the stains my tears left behind. “I’m not in the mood for your jokes, Kenji. Please just go away. Leave me alone.”
“No one,” he says, “is joking.” Kenji picks up one of the bricks stacked against the wall. “And the world isn’t going to stop waging war against itself just because you broke up with your boyfriend.”
I stare at him, fists shaking, wanting to scream.
He doesn’t seem concerned. “So what do you do in here?” he asks. “You just sit around trying to … what?” He weighs the brick in his hand. “Break this stuff?”
I give up, defeated. Fold myself onto the floor.
“I don’t know,” I tell him. I sniff away the last of my tears. Try to wipe my nose. “Castle kept telling me to ‘focus’ and ‘harness my Energy.’” I use air quotes to illustrate my point. “But all I know about myself is that I can break things—I don’t know why it happens. So I don’t know how he expects me to replicate what I’ve already done. I had no idea what I was doing then, and I don’t know what I’m doing now, either. Nothing’s changed.”
“Hold up,” Kenji says, dropping the brick back onto the stack before falling on the mats across from me. He splays out on the ground, body stretched out, arms folded behind his head as he stares up at the ceiling. “What are we talking about again? What events are you supposed to be replicating?”