We were both crying now. Because this was definitely a goodbye, the end of something that had only just started.
“I’m so sorry,” I breathed.
She shook her head, that black hair falling around her shoulders as she nearly sat in my lap. “Stop. Just… release the dopamine.”
“What?”
Alex pulled back, her eyes hard as she glared at me. “You’re going to hug me back, like a fucking man, and we’re going to get through this. You’re going to start therapy because youdesperatelyneed it, and you’re going to stop hating yourself for this. We can’t keep carrying it, Leo. I want to be happy again.”
My lips trembled, and I obeyed. I wrapped my arms around her waist and crushed her into me, for once not terrified of hurting her. Alex melted into me, and I could breathe again.
“I want to show you what it’s like to be happy,” she whispered, burying her face in my neck. “It’s not going to get easier, but it’s going to get better. I promise.”
She’d broken me, wholly and completely. I crushed my lips against hers, desperate. Lemons and lilac, ash and musk. We were never meant to mix, but I wanted to be a man who deserved this kind of love.
That’s what this is.
I pulled back, no filter in sight as I blurted out, “I will fucking die trying to make it up to you. I’ll do better, I promise.”
“Good.” She cupped my face, and the smile she gave me was devastating, full of emotion. “No more secrets, no more self loathing, andno more dying. We’re going to pick our next goal, and sprint for it.”
I brushed my lips against hers, nodding as if I were under a spell. “Just like Joon always said.”
She nodded. “Exactly.”
Even when the world broke to pieces, Alex was able to pick it all back up, and keep pushing forward. She was perseverance incarnate, and I’d spend the rest of my life trying to catch up to her. I made that vow deep within myself just before her room exploded.
TWENTY-SEVEN
ALEX
Leo coveredme as debris rained down around us, making dust stick to the tears that were still drying on my cheeks.
“Awe, how sweet,” a voice purred, and it sounded so familiar. “Sorry for the interruption.”
“What—” Leo was already lifting me over his shoulder as I coughed, choking on the smoke around us as he ran.
A crazed laugh followed us as I choked and gagged into my fist, Leo’s heat pulsing beneath me. He was trying to maintain control; trying not to burn me. Even in madness, I knew he wouldn’t hurt me, knew it would never be intentional.
That’s why I wanted to forgive him, why I wanted him to know that he wasworthy.
I threw out a hand, blue lighting up the smoke around us as he sprinted through my apartment building, leaping over the railings in the stairwell to drop with a grunt on his feet. He didn’t drop me, barely even jostled me as I forced my ability forward. I created a shroud between us and the Villain that had sent an explosion into my room; a shaky excuse for cover, an attempt at leaving the illusion of smoke to allow us to gain some distance.
“Oh, great, you’re both alive,” Reed appeared on the street as we burst out the doors, already dressed in his Hero gear. “Dahlia called; they figured out how to track Glitch, and well… I think it alerted them, or something. It looks like he’s coming your way?—”
He paused, staring up at the smoke that poured out from my building, his mismatched eyes hovering on the hole in the wall that would lead to my bedroom.
My room.
Where every picture of Joon and me sat, where all my memories and treasures were buried. Brick and smoke cascaded down, and my heart clenched. Were they all destroyed now?
“Hey, uh, Alex…did you know your apartment’s on fire?” Reed gaped.
Leo and I whipped our heads around, and shouted in unison, “Move,idiot!”
There wasn’t time for distractions.
Explosions started to rain down over us, every color of the rainbow as holes appeared in the cement, and the sound made my ears ring. Reed raised a hand, and I felt his shield go up just as purple burst over us, making the ground shake.
