Oh my gods.
He dropped out.
He couldn’t take playing their games anymore, and hedropped out.
“I have to go.” I shove Davyeras’s phone back at him. “I have to—”
I expect Orok to be the one to stop me. But he releases my arm, and it’s Davyeras who leaps in front of me, blocking my path.
“Mr. Walsh.” His voice is clipped. “It is admirable that you care about Mr. Tourael. But one of you needs to present your research today, or the final requirement for your degrees remains incomplete.”
Everything’s overlapping.
Yesterday, Thio sobbing in the lab.
Six years ago, the voice that became my nightmares:Are you going to let this be a failure?
And right now, Thio’s family sitting in that banquet room, expecting him to walk in and puppet himself for them.
They’ll cut him off. They’ll stop paying for his mom’s care. He’ll have nothing. No money, no support. And now, no degree, nothing to use in the fight to come.
Are you going to let this be a failure, Mr. Walsh?
Vibrations race up and down my arms, burrow into my lungs, dig into the bedrock of that new realization,I’m in love with Thio,and set off earthquakes, one after another.
I’ve had this emotion before. I’ve had it so many times over the past few years that I almost surrender to it out of familiarity alone. This is what precedes me doing something dumb, something I can’t come back from: fear. I lash out to protect myself. I lash out because I’m terrified, and reacting aggressively is the best way I’ve found to reclaim the power they’ve taken from me.
Butthis isn’t the same as Camp Merethyl.Thio dropping out now, medropping out then. This isn’t the same. Getting his degree wouldn’t make him a toy for his family to abuse; it’d give him what he needs to break free.
I can separate these events. Similarities don’t have to consume me. I can take a breath—gods-damned anger management techniques—and see through the haze.
I don’t have to be reactive. I don’t have to let it control me.
And that is far more powerful.
“He didn’t drop out,” I tell Davyeras, jaw wired shut. “He’s not—tell Narbeth not to process anything yet. Thio isn’t dropping out.”
Not if this is his fucked-up way of atoning for what he said to me. And if this is what he wants, I’ll talk to him, support him; but likehellis he not going to have the option to complete his degree, not when he’s this close, not if I can help it.
Davyeras smiles, tentative. “No one is eager to see Mr. Tourael give this up, I assure you. I’ll speak with Narbeth, but for now—” He glances at his watch and winces. “The presentation is supposed to start. I’ll introduce you?”
“Yeah,” I say, muscles still coiled to run. “Yeah, I’m good.”
Davyeras lingers one more beat, nods decisively, and slips into the room.
In the past few minutes, the hallway has cleared. The seats inside the banquet room are filled.
And Orok’s unmoved beside me, his eyes wide. “It’s possible I was wrong when I told you to listen to him. You shouldnothave given him time. Hedropped out?”
“He’s getting his degree.” Certainty wells up inside of me. “And he can chuck it aside after for all I care, but he’s getting it, because he’s earned it. And maybe I should’ve raced after him yesterday, maybe I could’ve changed his mind then, but it doesn’t matter. I’ll find him after this, and we’ll figure it out.”
I’m furious. At Thio’s family, at all the situations that forced him to this. I’mlivid,but not at him, and not at myself, and not at Orok.
Thio told me once that if I was going to be angry, I should use it.
Well, I am.
It’s giving me clarity and a target.
