I want to tell her to hold on to her rage. To be angry for as long as she needs. That her rage is warranted. But I also have no right to tell her how to feel or what to do.
All I can do is account for myself in words that feel so pitifully small against the enormity of the pain I caused her. “I’m sorry, Peyton. You deserved better.”
I’m prepared for the cut of her forgiveness again because it feels sharper than any knife could. I’m prepared for her to rage at me for the audacity of thinking that my apology could mean anything to her. I’m prepared for her to hurt me back in whatever way she wishes.
But she’s quiet. Too quiet.
Before my eyes, her form is fading.
She’s vanishing, leaving the crinkled sheets to settle across my chest, and then she’s gone.
I’m suddenly faced with a truth I’ve been avoiding…
I’m going to lose her no matter what I do.
No matter how I atone for my actions. No matter how well I live my life. No matter the family I choose to keep around me. It doesn’t matter a flying fuck what I do because none of it is about me.
She is free.
What matters is how I react to that.
What matters is that I let her go.
I roll off the mattress and onto the floor, taking heavy breaths of suddenly cold air, breaths filled with loss but also acknowledgment.
The box I was carrying rests on the floor beside me, partly under the bed.
Each of the symbols across its nearest side is glowing softly, including the fifth one.
I understand what it means now.
Acceptance.
It’s beyond hope, beyond accountability. It’s knowing that you fucked up, that you can’t go back, but you sure as hell have to do better.
Scooping up the box, I rise to my feet, taking note of the clothing that reappears on my body, the same jeans and T-shirt I wore into the maze.
I pull open the door, only to find myself looking, not at the corridor outside this room at the Academy, but at a rocky tunnel ahead.
There’s a mound on the ground in the distance, difficult to make out at a distance even with my beast’s enhanced eyesight.
Still, there’s only one way forward, so I approach cautiously until I make out a person’s form.
Peyton!
I hurry toward her, dropping to my knees in the gloom, afraid to move her in case she’s hurt. Her chest is rising and falling, and her hair is splayed out around her head like a crimson halo.
“Striker?” She groans and squints up at me.
For some reason, when she finally focuses on me, her eyes brighten, her cheeks flush, and her lips rise in a smile.
“There you are,” she says. “I thought I’d lost you.”
“Are you hurt?” I ask.
Her forehead creases. “I fell, but I think I’m okay.”
I’m shocked when she reaches for my hand as if it’s the most natural thing in the world for her to expect me to help her, and when she stands, she leans into me as if she trusts that I’ll support her.
