“J, listen to me. I never said you weren’t—”
“And now he’s gone. Warner is gone. Everyone from Omega Point might be dead. Everything we built... everything we worked toward—” I feel myself break, snap open from the inside. “I can’t lose him, Kenji.” My voice is shaking. My hands are shaking. “I can’t— You don’t know— You don’t—”
Kenji looks at me with actual pain in his eyes. “Stop it, J. You’re breaking my heart. I can’t hear this.”
And I realize, as I swallow back the lump in my throat, how much I’d needed to have this conversation. These feelings had been building inside of me for weeks, and I’d desperately needed someone to talk to.
I needed my friend.
“I thought I’d been through some hard things,” I say, my eyes now filling with tears. “I thought I’d lived through my share of awful experiences. But this— I honestly think these have been the worst days of my life.”
Kenji’s eyes are deep. Serious. “You want to tell me about it?”
I shake my head, wiping furiously at my cheeks. “I don’t think I’ll be able to talk about any of it until I know Warner is okay.”
“I’m so sorry, J. I really am.”
I sniff, hard. “You know my name is Ella, right?”
“Right,” he says, his eyebrows pulling together. “Yeah. Ella. That’s wild.”
“I like it,” I say. “I like it better than Juliette.”
“I don’t know. I think both names are nice.”
“Yeah,” I say, turning away. “ButJuliettewas the name Anderson picked out for me.”
“AndEllais the name you were born with,” Kenji says, shooting me a look. “I get it.”
“Yeah.”
“Listen,” he says with a sigh. “I know this has been a rough couple of weeks for you. I heard about the memory thing. I heard about lots of things. And I can’t pretend toimagine I have any idea what you must be going through right now. But you can’t blame yourself for any of this. It’s not your fault. None of it is your fault. You’ve been a pawn at the center of this conspiracy your entire life. The last month wasn’t going to change that, okay? You have to be kinder to yourself. You’ve already been through so much.”
I offer Kenji a weak smile. “I’ll try,” I say quietly.
“Feeling any better now?”
“No. And thinking about leaving here without Warner—not knowing if he’ll even make it onto this plane— It’s killing me, Kenji. It’s boring a hole through my body.”
Kenji sighs, looks away. “I get it,” he says. “I do. You’re worried you won’t have a chance to make things right with him.”
I nod.
“Shit.”
“I won’t do it. I can’t do it, Kenji.”
“I understand where you’re coming from, kid, I swear. But we can’t afford to do this. If they’re not back here in five minutes, we have to go.”
“Then you’ll have to leave without me.”
“No way, not an option,” he says, getting to his feet. “I don’t want to do this any more than you do, but I know Nazeera well enough to know that she can handle herself out there, and if she’s not back yet, it’s probably because she’s waiting for a safer moment. She’ll find her way. And you have to trust that she’ll bring Warner back with her. Okay?”
“No.”
“C’mon—”
“Kenji, stop.” I get to my feet, too, anger and heartbreak colliding.
