“Me?” His eyes widen. “I don’t have any secrets.”
“Yes, you do.”
“No, I don’t,” he says. “I’m not mysterious like you. I don’t have secret files documenting my second life. This is who I am. This is all of me.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes, it is—”
“What happens to you when you hear children cry?”
James recoils, hardening before my eyes. His voice is a breath. “What?”
“In the diner,” I say. “There were a few couples with young children at the tables near ours. Every time a child cried your body seized up. You’d disappear inside yourself for seconds at a time. You’re really good at hiding it.” I tilt my head at him. “It’s clear you’ve had a lot of practice hiding it. Nobody seems to notice the way you manage it.”
“Rosabelle—”
“I don’t think most people notice the way you handle your brother’s anxiety, either. The civilian. Adam. You anticipate and soothe his emotions without being asked, as if you’ve been doing it for years. At the diner I caught a glimpse of the tattoos on his arms. He was once a soldier of The Reestablishment. Does he suffer from post-traumatic stress? Was he always like this? When did he start leaning on you for emotional support? He must be nearly ten years older than you.”
“I don’t—”
“You’re the youngest by far of everyone I’ve met who matters to you. Do any of your family members realize how much weight you carry? Or do they treat you like an overgrown child? According to the data I gathered, you weren’t raised by your father or even formally acknowledged by him until shortly before his death. Warner was loyal to The Reestablishment until a decade ago; Adam appears to have enlisted in the army when The Reestablishment was still in power. You must’ve been very young. Practically orphaned. Who raised you? Where is your mother? What happened to you when you were a child—”
“Stop,” James cries. He’s staring at me like I’ve cut him open. “I hate it when you do that.”
“When I do what?”
“Rip my heart out.”
This answer surprises me. “I didn’t realize that’s what I was doing.”
He almost laughs. “You didn’t realize? One way or another, I walk away from you bleeding. You’ve given me more scars than anyone I’ve ever met.”
That strikes me badly. In fact, I hate it.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
James sighs, pushing a hand through his hair. “Look, those things you just said about me—they aren’t secrets.”
“What do you mean?”
“My past is not nefarious. There’s no subterfuge. It’s just—I don’t like to talk about it.”
“Oh,” I say quietly, looking away. “I can’t relate. I love talking about my past.”
James stills. “Did you just make a joke?”
I manage to smile in response.
It’s tentative and a little self-conscious, and it’s as close as I can get to a peace offering, but it doesn’t have the intended effect. James doesn’t smile back.
He goes slack. “You’re so fucking beautiful.”
The smile fades from my face. Need knifes through me.
“I just want to be clear,” he says, his voice tight. “That if we were up against anything less than a global threat right now, I’d be trying to figure out how to finish what we started in that diner.”
We lock eyes for a breathless moment.
