Foolish girl. You could have lived.
When I open my eyes, no trace of tears remains. Jesse is on his knees, hovering above me. The sun crowns his head in a fiery halo, his black hair rippling across it like an eclipse.
I slide a palm over his chest, knotting a fist into the soft fabric of his shirt. The other hand curls around the collar of his jacket. “I was going to ask you to come with me to prom, you know.”
Jesse lets me tug him to the ground, bracing himself on his elbows above me. A thumb brushes the length of my brow, sweeping over the sensitive skin of my temple. “I would have said yes.”
My laugh tapers into a long sigh. “Liar.”
Large hands frame my face, drawing my gaze up. “I would have said yes,” he repeats firmly. “I would have gone anywhere with you, Mansour.”
A tear beads in the corner of Jesse’s eye, and the muscles beneath my hands coil, as though he’s about to pull away. I tighten my grip. “Everyone leaves Ward. That doesn’t mean much to me.” I wipe his tear with the heel of my hand and wish I could feel it. “Would you have stayed?”
The numbness reaches my chest, paralyzing my lungs. I struggle to hide my flagging breath.
Jesse waits until I’m looking at him again. “I would have stayed. I might’ve even been convinced to plant a fruit tree in the yard.”
I laugh, half humor and half heartbreak, and if my heart wasn’t slowing beneath the poison traveling through me, it would have cracked. Jesse Talbot finally did it. He finally set down roots in Ward. Left a mark on this town, a handprint in the ground sayingI was here.
He cared.
Jesse sweeps my hair from my cheek and lowers his head, pausing with his lips a hairsbreadth from my own. “Can I—”
I silence the rest of the sentence against my mouth, arms winding around Jesse’s neck as he finally,finallykisses me like he did the day in the train. If my toes were still capable of sophisticated movement, they would be curling inside my shoes. Heat races through me, and for the first time since Khalto Safa’s visit, my body acts in a way I understand. I arch into Jesse, clutching the back of his jacket as his hand slides to the small of my back and presses me against him.
It’s perfect. The curse would have given me this if I’d let it. A lifetime of Jesse’s lips on my throat. Of him holding me desperately close, each press of his fingers against my skin a promise and a claim.
When the numbness reaches my chin, I force myself to pull back. I’ll need my vocal cords to say what I need to, and I don’t know how much longer I’ll have use of them.
I put my hands on either side of his face, forcing his gaze to mine. “I want you to listen carefully, because I think it’ll be hard for you to remember much about today, but I need you to remember this: You broke the curse, Jesse. My soul is mine again. Your mom’s curse didn’t say anything about saving a life.”
I tighten my hands when he tries to look away. “I might have said yesif it weren’t for you. I might have brought this curse to Ward and started the nightmare all over again.” With every passing minute, the numbness sinks deeper. Soon, I’ll lose even the ability to lift my limbs. “We ended two curses, Jesse Talbot. Be proud of that.”
“Said yes?” Jesse rears back. Disbelief paints his features in broad stripes. “Mina, did it—did it give you the choice?”
I roll to my knees with difficulty. Jesse steadies me, and it finally appears to dawn on him that my clumsiness isn’t normal. I press my lips to his cheek, leaning my forehead against his hair. “Of course it was a choice. It has always been a choice.”
I want to be someone.Bamba had said, so many generations ago.Whoever it costs.
“Take care of Baba, please,” I rasp. “Have him kiss Teta and Gedo for me.”
I lift my head and prepare my body. The body I’d spent so many years training, strengthening. The body of the former dance team captain that, with any luck, still has enough juice to outrun the mortician’s son.
I memorize Jesse’s face, tracing each lovely line.
“Tell him I fell,” I whisper.
By the time his head snaps up, I’m already running.
“Mina!“
I sprint past the abandoned picnic baskets, full of food we never shared. Past the crochet blanket I didn’t get a chance to ask about. Past the warning sign four feet from the ledge. With each step, the numbness spreads, billowing like a toxic fog through my joints.
Unlike Jesse, I grew up in Ward. I know every tree, every footpath, every cliff. His shouts grow fainter as I weave toward the steep eastern trail, ignoring the signs posted along the path. Mud from the Ward Wailer slicks the narrow, descending path between the high crags of the lake. My lungs scream, fighting to push against the thick weight surrounding them. If I slow, if I even entertain the thought of stopping, I won’t makeit another step. I’ll die right here, out in the open, the curse claiming the last Haikal a mile away from dozens of celebrating teenagers. Right next to Jesse Talbot, the boy shrouded in rumors and darkness, who would be given the benefit of the doubt by no one and arrested faster than he could say, “It was the curse!”
I didn’t ask Jesse how the others had died, but I imagine it was identical: a slow suffocation, as though the breath of life the curse granted us was slowly leaking from our lips.
I thought breaking the curse would kill the Haikals instantly, but I was wrong. It was killing us off in order. Death took three days to reach me because I am the last of them.
