We stared at each other for a long moment, and then I set my magazine aside. Wes and I had been together for years, we were a team. I cared deeply for him, but lately... things around me had started to feel hopeless. What was the point of loving anybody anymore?
We would never survive The Program.
That idea consumed me; it consumed my love for Wes. It was all I thought about.
Something was wrong with me. I was unwell, and I didn’t have a single person to talk to about it aside from Wes. Anyone else would turn me in to The Program. But I couldn’t spread this to Wes, this... sadness. I couldn’t do that to him.
“Tatum?” Wes asked, still waiting for me to answer. But what could I say?
“No,” I told him. “It’s not the same.”
Wes flinched, lowering his eyes to the blanket. He sniffled, his lips parting as he tried to find the question he needed to ask.
He was right—I didn’t feel the same anymore. I was starting to think I didn’t feel at all. For weeks, I’d been retreating further and further inside my head. Finding a safe spot. From The Program, from the world. From his mother. I was detached from everyone, including Wes. If I stopped feeling, stopped loving, I could still make it. I could still survive.
But new guilt crawled into my chest as I realized what I was doing. I would destroy him if I kept this up—this push and pull of a relationship. This lie. I’d basically be handing him over to The Program.
I had to let him go.
“We should see other people,” I said, watching as he flinched again. “With everything going on, I think it’d be the best idea.”
Wes lifted his eyes to mine, his face pained. “You want to date other people?” he asked, his voice scratchy with emotion. Tears spilled over onto his cheeks, and he was crying. I was making him cry.
“I think you should see other people,” I clarified. He hitched in a breath, his hand over his heart like it hurt.
“I want to be withyou,” he said. “Are you saying... do you still want to be with me, Tate?”
I couldn’t hold his eyes, and I let the darkness creep over me. Blotting out the light. Erasing us. “No,” I said, staring down at the blanket. “No, Wes. I don’t think we should be together anymore.”
Wes choked out a cry, and he was a wounded animal, desperate and hurt. I didn’t even want to look at him. Didn’t want to see the damage I had just inflicted. It would save him, though. Letting me go would save him.
“I’m sorry,” I said, low. “I’m so sorry.”
Wes dropped back onto the blanket, his forearm over his face, refusing to speak to me. But I curled up next to him anyway, unable to let him cry alone.
I still loved him. Just not the same.
And I listened quietly, hating myself, as he told me he wished he were dead.
•••
I wake up to my phone buzzing near my head, disoriented. I squint against the light coming in my window, trying to unravel the mystery in my head. My phone stops buzzing, but my head doesn’t.
The world is blurry, slow to come back. The memory sticks with me, and a heavy realization crashes over my soul: I broke up with Wes first. I broke his heart and told him to date other people. I sent him away, and when he did try to find happiness, I pulled him back in. I pulled him down.
Until we were both taken by The Program.
Although it would be easier to blame the epidemic for this, blame fear—it doesn’t matter what caused it. In the end, my sadness, loneliness, ended with me hurting Wes. And then to make it worse, I continued to hurt him. Right up until the end. Right up until yesterday.
I finally know the truth of our story. I was slowly dying and thought letting him go would save him. When he did, in fact, start seeing Kyle, it tore me up. And I wanted it all back. I wanted him back. But it was too late. I’d hurt him, broken him down. He was trying to survive, but I begged him to stay with me. And in the end, he wouldn’t leave me, even though he should have.
I’m the worst thing that’s ever happened to him.
My nose is bleeding from the crashback, mixing with the tears streaming down my cheeks. As I reach to grab a tissue, my phone starts buzzing again. I peek at the caller ID and see it’s Nathan. I have no idea why he’d keep calling instead of texting. It must be serious.
“You okay?” I ask as way of answering, wiping off the last of the blood.
Nathan laughs bitterly. “Not quite. But I have an idea. Want to skip school today with me and Foster and get pancakes?”
