by Sarah Noffke
“I don’t know,” I say. “I’m just not ready.”
“Roya, this morning in the main hall your shield came down briefly.”
Bemused I stare at him, search him.
He clears his throat and looks off before returning his focus on me. “Aiden’s came down too, more so than ever before.”
“George, this isn’t about––”
“I really don’t think your heart is in this.” He motions between the two of us.
“How can you say that? And isn’t this the wrong time to make that judgment, with everything going on?”
With a tight mouth he stares off. “I told you before that at some point this was going to have to be solely about us and not him. I fear that will never be the case. I haven’t wanted to admit it, but your feelings for Aiden never dissipated. Even though you know you can’t be together, you still love him. And sadly I know that it’s pure, it’s not emotion arising just because you can’t have what you want. I think he will always own your heart, whereas you’ve only given me a lease on it.”
“Everything you’ve just said is absurd. We’re friends, that’s all,” I say in a voice that sounds so convincing even I believe it.
“Roya, think about who you’re trying to fool right now.” His eyes fix on me with a new seriousness.
“You’re being incredibly stupid,” I say, my words vexed.
“No, I’m being honest.”
“You think you know me so well.” I push up to a standing position. “Have you considered you’re misreading emotions?”
George stands up beside me, a new determination in his eyes. “I’m not wrong, although I’ve been trying to convince myself otherwise.”
“Please don’t do this,” I say too weakly. “Not right now. I need you.”
“And I’m here.” His eyes soften as he speaks. “But I’m not willing to keep pretending with you anymore. I won’t be the guy you’re almost in love with,” he says, his words devouring my heart. “We both know this relationship isn’t reciprocal. I’m in love with you, Roya. Can you honestly return that emotion for me?”
“I want to,” I say, and he reflexively backs away, shaking his head with a knowing he’s denied.
“That’s not enough.” George clenches his jaw. “Especially since I know you’re capable of more.”
Usually I’m prepared for danger, but I’m not prepared for this. And this situation feels dangerous, because it has the potential to scar me. “What do you want me to say?” I respond, standing up straighter, looking at him boldly. He created this confrontation for one and only one reason. I know there’s no running away from where it’s going.
“You don’t have to say anything. I just don’t think we should be together anymore.”
I’m suddenly aware of my hands and how they hang loosely by my legs. I transfer weight back and forth between my feet, unable to figure out how to stand properly. With great effort I will my shoulders to relax. There’s nothing I can say to change his mind right now. The only option I have left is to allow my emotions to surge through the room freely. Taking down my shield, I stand back and let every emotion I’ve held regarding George free to gallop between us. I imagine my emotions as tiny sparks of pink and blue lights spiraling through the room, little iridescent pigments for George to pick up and read. They tell the story I can’t through my lips. They tell him that this hurts, that I need him, that I don’t want to lose him. My emotions tell him that I want to love him like he deserves. And the last flickering emotion, a spark of sapphire coated with gold, describes how not loving him like he deserves is my tragedy, not his.
His hands clasp mine, making my eyes go wide. I suck in my breath, hold it. Inside him I see the all-familiar mirror of my emotions. Regret. Betrayal. Confusion cloaking something so close to love…but far enough away, I can’t describe it. And then like a soft wind on a spring night, it all disappears and before me stands George. No emotions, just a wall of stone.
“Please, George, give me another chance. I can really try, I can––”
“It wouldn’t matter,” he whispers in a voice I don’t recognize as his. He’s already changing…into not-my-George.
“Please, don’t do this,” I say, through the threatening tears. Swallowing pushes them down, but not for long. “I need you.”
Firm hands grip my shoulders. “You don’t need me. Never did.” Desperately I want to touch the scowl on his lips, kiss him until it disappears, but he holds me away from him.
“Please…don’t,” I argue again.
He sucks in a breath, stares off at a distant corner. “I kept wanting to believe I was your Florentina,” George says, referring to the main love interest in Love in the Time of Cholera. “I wanted to believe our love was the one that would last. But I am Juvenal and if I remain in this relationship then we will live, but only half a life. If you were to be mine, over time your love would grow complacent and although there would still be love, it wouldn’t be enough.”
“You’re wrong,” I say with only half conviction in my voice.
“You don’t love me like you love Aiden.”
How can words feel the same way as a head-on collision? “But George, I do.”
“Then say you love me.”
I wring my hands. Fidget. Remain silent, unable to voice anything new.
“Like I said, you don’t love me like you like love him,” he says, nodding, confirmation written on his always serious face. In not saying anything, I’ve said everything. “But I’m happy for you,” he says, in a distant voice. “I’m still bitter, but also happy. Because no matter what Aiden does you’ll always love him.” His heartbroken smile etches into my mind, a haunting in the works. “Congratulations, your heart’s allowed you to love someone unconditionally.”
“I want it to be you.” My words are as broken as me.
“But that’s not how love works. We don’t choose who we fall in love with and we can’t make someone love us the way we want.”
“George, we can make this work, just give me––”
He shakes his head. “No, because I want all of you and I think that will never happen. Not for me.”
“But there’s no future for Aiden and me,” I say, searching his eyes.
“Well, then I hope you find someone who lets you love them with half your heart.”
“That’s cruel. Why would you say that?”
“You want to know what’s cruel?! What’s cruel is I know exactly how the two of you feel about each other!” His deep voice bounces off the stainless steel wall, and all his anger soaks into me. Chest rising up and down from the sudden rush of emotions, he takes a few steadying breaths. “You love me,” he says in a calmer tone, “but I know you’re capable of more. How can I settle for less when you look at him and your heart blazes?”
Cringing with denial, I shake my head.
“It’s all right. I don’t blame you for it. We aren’t responsible for who our heart chooses.” A shaky, heart-rending smile graces his mouth. “I wish at times my heart chose someone else.”
Closing my eyes, I pretend to be transported to a giant warehouse where I can scream and hear my voice echo back to me. When I open my eyes I glare at the carpet under his feet. There’s no begging left in me. There’s no changing his mind.
George places two fingers under my chin, tipping it up so I’m forced to look at him. “Roya, the irony of our relationship is you think I taught you about love, but the reverse is really true. I never thought I could fall in love with someone before you. Those were emotions and experiences other people had. But you changed that for me. Half my heart will always belong to you. How can it not? Before you, I thought I was doomed to the shadows of other people’s emotions. You brought light to my feelings. Made them the central part of my universe for the first time. You’re the girl who made me hear my own heart beat for the first time.” He leans down, brushes his fingers across my cheek, and kisses me once upon the lips. “Forever and ever I will love you, an
d that’s as it should be.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
As usual, my twin brother is late for practice. I scan through the list on my iPod trying to find a song that inspires angst rather than grief. Last night after I left George’s room I pulled the iPod out of the boxes where I’d imprisoned it. There’s no point in hiding from emotions anymore. Also, they’ve always served me in battle. Facing Zhuang this time is going to take a new level of emotion. Good thing I have an overflowing storage.
“Did I not get the memo?” Aiden pokes his head through the door, taking in the empty classroom.
I jump, startled by his sudden presence.
“Are you teaching a seminar?” he says.
Words from my conversation with George last night spring into my head, making my face flush red. I busy myself wrapping up the ear buds, making a great effort not to look at him. “No, I’m just waiting for Joseph.”
“Because…?”
“Uhhh…because…we’re practicing a theatrical performance for once Day Z is over.”
“Oh,” he says, nodding like this makes perfectly ridiculous sense. “Well, that was quite the scene in the main hall yesterday. Bravo,” he says with a sarcastic clap.
“Thanks,” I say dully, the ache still living in my being. “We were rehearsing for the play.”
“Oh, so everything between you and George is all right?”
“If by ‘all right,’ you mean he dumped me, then sure.” There’s a stain in the shape of a deformed duck on the carpet. I trace it with my eyes.
“George dumped you?” Aiden asks, walking further into the room, standing on my duck. “Why? Is he insane?”
“You were right about Trey,” I say, bringing my eyes up until they find Aiden’s. His expression is as hard as granite right now. I remind myself I haven’t just hurt George with my apathetic nature, I’ve hurt two guys. I’m the bomb and the shrapnel. I’m the explosion and the debris that maims.
“Oh?”
“Yes, Trey doesn’t want me with anyone. He threatened to deport George out of Institute.”
“Is that why he broke it off?”
“No,” I say, voice clipped.
“Is it because you’re playing a dangerous game with a psychopath?” His eyes dart to my neck, narrow.
“No,” I say. A sudden desperation I should have used initially with George unleashes. “And my meeting with Chase was nothing. I was only trying––”
Aiden holds up his hand. “Shhh…” He steps forward, almost grips my arm. “I’ve seen you operate enough to know you’re calculated. If you’re playing with Chase then I suspect...” He stops, scratches his chin, smirks. “Well, I’m no scientist…oh wait, yes I am.”
“You suspect I have a good reason?” I ask in disbelief that this conversation could be so easy.
“I do,” he says at once. “I mean the idea is still hard to stomach, but who am I to judge?”
“Right,” I say, taking a seat on the desk in the middle of the platform. Aiden moves forward, leaving only three feet between us.
“So George broke it off, huh?”
“Yes,” I say with conviction. “And it’s probably best that he did. Trey wants me focused. And he’s probably right.”
Aiden gives a slow nod. “Ms. Stark, I do believe you just said your father’s name without your usual bit of revulsion.”
“Did I? Well, I guess learning my family history has softened me up a little.”
He raises a curious eyebrow.
“You don’t want to know,” I say, with a trivializing wave. “It’s sick and demented.”
“I do want to know because it involves you, but I’ll wait for you to tell me another time,” he says, anticipation in his voice.
Silence. It hangs between us, enticing me to say things that I shouldn’t, that I can’t. Where in the hell is Joseph?
“So why did George break things off?” Aiden dares to ask. Sometimes I want to slap him for being so bold.
I clench my eyes shut and push the words out past the ache in my throat. “You know why.” When I snap my eyes open Aiden is slow to cover up his satisfied expression.
He points to the iPod sitting next to me. “Do you want me to load that song on your iPod?”
“What song?”
“The one we danced to. Twice,” he adds a second later.
Any doubt I had about our night spent together in my dream on the hill is gone now. Every word we said was from us. And I truly walked away. Rejected him. As I will have to do over and over if necessary.
I’ve been silent for too long. Aiden gives me a sideways look.
“Is that a yes? Do you want the song?”
I shake my head roughly. “No,” I say in hush.
He nods, disappointment flaking off his features. “For the first time in my life I’m sorry to be right about something.”
“Trey?” I ask.
He nods.
The look in Trey’s eyes when he confronted me about George surfaces in my mind. It was a more serious look than normal. An unrestrained protectiveness. “You’re too young for a relationship,” I remember him saying. “You have too many things you should be focused on right now.” Anger flares up in my head like a match being struck.
“Yeah well,” I finally break the second patch of silence, “I guess I was naïve to think that the dictator of the Lucidites wouldn’t want to dictate my life too.”
Aiden leans against a nearby wall, giving me a look of sympathy. “What are your plans for when Zhuang arrives?”
“Trey told everyone to dream travel and generate.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.” A corner of Aiden’s lip twitches with a slight smile.
I pull at a piece of hair and twirl it through my fingers. “Something tells me to face what’s coming.”
“Then you’ll do it,” he says, kicking off the wall.
“You’re not going to tell me not to?”
The grin on his face slowly undoes me. Unlaces my heart. “We both know that’s not even an argument worth constructing. Are there other people who have the ridiculous notion they can argue with you and change your mind?”
“There are many.”
“Time wasters,” he says, shaking his head with a smirk.
“But you argue with me sometimes.”
“For the plain and simple fact that I like to,” he says, breeching the distance we’ve held between us.
I swallow down his words, his ploy at my heart. Dismissing it instantly. He doesn’t quite get yet that I’m his downfall. “What will you do? On Day Z?”
“I’ll hold down the fort. Much of the security has to be manually controlled,” he says matter-of-factly.
“From your lab?” I ask.
He nods.
“Will you be safe there?”
“Probably.” His eyes dart to my neck, which I now realize is exposed since I’ve been playing with my hair. “So would your game with Chase have anything to do with Day Z?”
“You should have become a detective, not a scientist,” I say, covering back up the marks on my neck.
“I’m sure you have a good plan, I’m just hoping it––”
“I’m here,” Joseph sings, strolling around the corner into the room. He sizes up both of us and scowls. “Well, well, well. It appears I’m interrupting something. Good.”
“Hello, Mr. Jordan,” Aiden says, bowing his head formally at Joseph.
“Hey Livingston, I think I saw one of your white coats milling around in the hallway, looking lost,” Joseph says, taking a seat on the desk next to me. “Why don’t you go fetch him?”
“You must be mistaken, I mentally know where they all are all the time. There’s not one on this level right now,” Aiden says, winking at me.
Joseph turns to me. “You know what I was just thinking about?” he says, a mischievous gleam in his eyes. “Remember the time I walked in your room and you and George were top––”
“Joseph,” I say in a rus
h, my eyes going wide.
“Well, I think I’ve missed my cue.” Aiden’s mouth twitches, eyes narrowed. “I’ll be taking my leave.”
“Is it your mission to make my life hell?” I ask, shutting the door to the classroom after Aiden exits.
He gives an angry sigh. “I already warned you that you’re only bringing trouble for that guy.”
“I’m well aware of that and doing my best to push him away.”
“Well, you need to work on your strategy because he didn’t look too deterred,” he says.
I cover my face with my hands. “I know. It isn’t something easy to do.”
“Especially when you’re in love with him,” Joseph says, hopping down from the desk.
“Oh shut up, would you?”
“Not a chance. You know, sometimes even when two people love each other the universe still conspires against them, forces them apart.”
“I don’t like the evil universe you speak of.”
He shrugs. “Actually the universe is kind and wants what’s best for us. It just wants to push us to become a better version of ourselves. The only way we’ll do that is if we’re forced to fight for what it’s keeping from us.”
“And how does that relate to you and Trent?”
“That’s an exception.”
“Whatever,” I say with a laugh. “So you’re late,” I scold.
“And you’re always early, so I figure we balance each other out.”
“You’re bad at math.”
“I apologize for my tardiness. I was busy.”
From a quick dip into his thoughts I answer the question I’m about to ask. It’s actually pretty awesome being in someone’s head at times, albeit creepy. “So I guess Trent couldn’t hold himself to his ultimatum.”
“I’m irresistible. You would know that if you weren’t my sister.”
♦
Unfortunately, Joseph’s prediction had been correct: He’s absolutely incapable of controlling fire. Not only can he not create a spark in the darkest of rooms when I do everything to try and put him in the darkest of moods, but he also can’t control fire when it’s already present. I brought along a candle and matches thinking that maybe we were mistaken to think that Joseph should be responsible for creating the fire in the first place—after all, I don’t have to create wind, but rather just control what exists. It didn’t matter, because after an hour of staring at a flame off and on Joseph hadn’t as much as made it flicker except with his exasperated breath.