I looked up at the sky, but it always looked the same, one uniform color without hues.
I looked at the ground beneath my feet, and that was always the same as well: barren, devoid of anything that bloomed.
“You have everything you need, except the things you really want…” John met my gaze, but I immediately lowered my eyes to conceal my weakness. I didn’t know what I really wanted.
I had gotten used to surviving on my own, and sometimes I thought I didn’t want anyone by my side. Other times, I wondered why I couldn’t be like any other normal human being, capable of developing healthy relationships and nurturing them over time.
“People like me don’t get better, John. We’re fucked up, and we stay fucked up,” I said sadly. “I need to get back to work now. You should leave.” I pointed at the door.
He didn’t answer but just watched me closely for a few seconds, assessing my sudden coldness. Then he sighed heavily before giving me a knowing look.
“Don’t be afraid of life, Neil. She is not our enemy.” He strolled over to the door with his hands still in his pockets, and with one last quick glance, walked out and left me alone to fill the void with even more emptiness.
I knew that it was just fear.
Fear of loving.
Fear of being loved.
Fear of forgiving only to suffer again.
Fear of trusting.
Fear of offering myself up again.
Fear of the world.
Fear of me—of what I was.
I wasn’t going to seek out Selene. I wasn’t going backward.
I would keep my Babygirl safe and sound deep down in my soul. And as the soul was immortal, so too would be my Tinkerbell.
25
“It hurt, but what had I been expecting?”
Selene
New York was just as I remembered it, yet every time I walked into Matt’s house, it felt different.
“You were crazy to come here with a fever,” Logan said, handing me a mug of hot cocoa, and I sneezed again. The big house was completely silent since Anna was the only other person there besides the two of us.
“Like a little cold was going to stop me.” In reality, I was running a fever, one so high that my white sweater did nothing to prevent the chills that moved down my arms and back. But nothing would have stopped me from flying out to New York and, potentially, seeing Neil again.
Logan had called me a few weeks before and explained what happened when he, Chloe, and John went to find my human disaster out in Chicago. He was there, sure enough, and living with Megan.
It hurt, but what had I been expecting? That he’d be sitting in a corner, wallowing in his misery? Maybe he had been at one point, but then Megan had been there to pick him back up. She was with him, in the place I should have been, doing what I should have been doing.
I was angry both with Neil and with myself because I should have donemore on the day of his graduation. I should have kept him from walking out that door and going off on his own.
“It should have stopped you. You’re obviously unwell.” Logan laid a hand on my forehead and cocked an eyebrow. “In my opinion, your temperature’s way too high.” He took me gently by the arm and guided me down to sit on the couch. I left my luggage where I’d dropped it next to the door. “There will be other holidays, you know,” he chided me.
But we both knew it wasn’t the prospect of celebrating an early Christmas with Matt’s family that had brought me out from Detroit. It was the tentative, begrudging promise Logan had extracted from his brother that Neil would at least try to see his siblings over the holidays. If there was even a chance Neil would be there, I had to go.
My wavy, disheveled hair fell into my eyes, and Logan lifted a hand to arrange it over my shoulder. As he did so, I studied his weary face and frowned.
“Okay, what’s wrong?” I could tell that something was bothering him beyond just my fever.
