“But I couldn’t do it. She wanted me to stop her pain and I couldn’t.” A fresh round of sobs racks his body.
Meanwhile fury rages in mine. I’m so fucking angry I want to scream. I want to pull the shelves from the walls and burn this entire shopping center to the ground.
How could sheaskhim to do that? This was the woman who probably saved my life because she raised Jamie to be such a wonderful person. She gave him the notebook that told him how to help me. Why would she ask something so unfathomable ofJamie?
Because she was scared.
The fury in my chest starts to dissipate. We were all scared. And fear made us all do incomprehensible things.
“I told her I couldn’t,” Jamie continues. “Then she told me how to administer the drugs so it would kill her. And I told her I would but... I couldn’t do it. I let her suffer becauseIdidn’t want to hurt her. I couldn’t even hunt when we were at the cabin. My mom taught me, but I was never able to shoot anything.”
Then he met me. That’s what he means. Because before he met me, he never would have shot Harvey and Walt. I ruined Jamie.
I kick a shoebox out of the way and crouch down in front of him, pulling his gaze up to meet mine. “You didn’t want to hurt her because you’re a good person, Jamie. And that’s why I left the cabin and went to Alexandria. Because I wanted to be more... good. More like you.”
He sniffs. “I don’t feel like a good person.”
I shrug in the dim light. “That’s whatmakesyou good. Despite everything, you don’t feel like you’ve done enough. But there’s never an enough, Jamie. There’s not some good deed jar we fill up so we get to retire to Florida. I mean,arethere even good people in Florida?”
He manages to chuckle and wipes his nose with the back of his hand.
“Well, we’re in Florida now,” I say. “So that’s at least two.”
“Don’t forget Cara.”
“I wasn’t. I was counting you and her. I’m a garbage human. IdeserveFlorida.”
I actually get another chuckle out of that and it feels like I’m winning!
“You’re not a garbage human,” Jamie says.
I still hold his left hand. His thumb moves slowly across the back of my knuckles, back and forth. My chest tightens.
It’s a tiny gesture, one that probably means absolute squat, but itfeelsintimate. More intimate than sharing a bed in Fort Caroline or holding each other in the dark of a flooded tunnel, or even lying on a cabin floor while his hands caressed my leg.
This feels so much different than all that.
I lock eyes with him. Half his face is cast in shadow and there’ssadness there, but something else in his eyes. He seems hopeful. Maybe. Is this... Are we having a moment? Like aromanticmoment?
“Guys.”
Cara breaks our gaze. She’s shuffling up the aisle. I let Jamie’s hand go, standing up and pulling away from him. Whatever that was, ew on me for trying to take advantage when Jamie was upset. Ugh, Idodeserve Florida.
“Someone’s coming,” Cara says. “It’s a group. A big one.”
My mouth feels dry. Jamie stands next to me. “Fort Caroline?” he asks just as I ask, “How many?”
Cara shakes her head. “Lots. Maybe twenty? Maybe more.”
“Back of the store.” Jamie’s voice is low, serious. If he’s scared, he’s hiding it well.
“Sorry,” Cara whispers as she passes me.
Sorry for what? She has nothing to be sorry for. We weren’t doing anything. Nothing was happening! I follow them to the back of the store and we crouch down behind an endcap.
Two voices shout back and forth from the parking lot. Too far away, indistinct.
“Cara,” Jamie whispers. “Do they have guns?”
