Chapter 25 You Missed My Heart
You Missed My Heart
Now
B
lood sticks to my skin as I stumble through the halls—Leiholan’s mingling with the monster’s. I’m coated in crimson, and while every kid bats an eye, none of them are shocked. They think I’ve hurt another student, not a monster.
Somehow, that’s more comforting.
My body moves fast while I feel like I’m dying. I lean heavily against Azaire’s door, regaining strength before pushing it open and stumbling into his suite. He’s sitting in his room, his door ajar, already calling my name. I hear the concern in his voice more than I feel it.
The strength I stole from Desdemona withers away. I slump onto the couch.
Azaire rushes to me, dripping with worry, like the blood drips from my hands.
“What happened?”
Gods, I’m covered in blood. I stare at my hands. My trembling hands. My gloves stained red.
Without a word, Azaire wraps his arms around me. He pulls me into his chest, resting his chin on the top of my head as he strokes my hair.
I’m shocked by how close he’s willing to hold me with all this blood.
I push away from him. “Are you wearing it?” I scan his body, eyes landing on the amulet at his chest, tied with a strip of leather. “Never take it off. Promise me.”
Azaire shakes his head. “I never have.”
Mindlessly, I stand, pacing back and forth, my body fueled solely by anxiety.
Azaire rises beside me, taking my hand and pulling me into his room. “What is—”
“This was a bad idea.” I cut him off.
“What was a bad idea?”
“This.” I motion between us. “Us. I’m in the center of it, and I’m dragging you with me.” I look anywhere but at him—at the journal sitting on his desk, the neat pile of books in the corner, the closet opened slightly. “I was always scared of hurting you.”
For selfish reasons.
Fear of feeling that hurt, magnified.
I point to myself, clutching onto my chest as if I can break through and rip my heart out. “I want to be with you, Azaire, more than anything.”
Azaire grabs hold of my gesticulating hands, freezing me.
“Then be with me,” he says softly.
For a second, he steals my sight, and I nearly let myself fall into him—surrender. But the boy was right. He always has been.
I reclaim my focus, pulling myself back from the edge, doing what I came here to do. Doing what the boy knew I would before I did. “It’s not just emotions anymore.”
“What is it?”
He’s so empathetic. All I can feel is his longing to understand me. But understanding me would drive him right to the prophecy. The end of the world. The potential monster in Desdemona.
I would drive him to be there, the way Leiholan was.
It would drive him to danger.
“I can take it,” he whispers. “Give it to me, Wendy.” He drops my hands, his fingers cupping my face. He holds me like he’s afraid I might slip away—like he already knows what happens next.
I watch him with wide eyes. A pain-laced gaze.
“I’ll make it go away. Wendy, I promise.” Azaire’s hands slip from my face to my waist, pulling me closer, his body pressing against mine like he’s trying to merge us into one. “I’ll take the pain.”
His words are so tender—so hopeful. But he doesn’t understand that’s the very thing I’m trying to save him from.
Even though I long to lean in, to touch and hold Azaire the way I only can with him, I tug my hands away.
“I need to clean up,” I say abruptly, walking to the washroom.
For a moment, I stand dazed before the mirror, my breath shallow, the reflection before me almost unreal. Blood is smeared across my face, a cruel artwork etched into my skin. I hardly recognize myself, the sight too much to fully grasp, yet I can’t look away.
Harmonious globs of red are crusted to my skin.
They even cover my scar.
I force my stained gloves beneath the cool water, splashing a handful on my face, watching the pink water as it swirls down the drain.
This isn’t what I wanted. This is what I feared. I grip onto the sink to get hold of my destabilizing balance. The bathroom sways.
Being close to me is going to get Azaire killed.
I knew it from the beginning, and now I’ve gotten too close for comfort. There is no longer an easy way to walk away.
“I have been trying to tell you, Little Thorn,” the boy says.
“Shut up!” I finally scream at him—at me.
I need a clear mind. Not the boy.
Delivering a prophecy isn’t a one and done deal. Like all things with a Eunoia’s magic, emotional attachments heighten them. You can’t give a prophecy without being, on some level, involved in its outcome.
If its outcome is the end of our worlds, I can’t drag Azaire into that.
The Weapon feels so small now.
Actually, it feels like nothing now.
I wonder how I’d feel about it if I still had that capacity. But I can’t see myself caring about a Weapon above the potential end of the universe. One that lies in the prophecy.
Maybe Pa did me a favor. He helped me find my focus.
As I step back into the room, Azaire picks up my hands. His touch is gentle, pleading.
I feel dazed. I feel drunk. My brain muddles in the same way Xander’s did when I touched him.
When I killed him.
Azaire wraps his arms around my waist. He pulls me so close.
I love this.
I love him.
I belong here.
I don’t push him away.
Holding him makes this so much worse. All of this pain, because of me.
Exactly as I knew it would be.
I’m a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I should’ve never let it go this far.
But I love him.
I love him, I love him, I love him.
And I feel his heart breaking. Gods, that makes it so much harder. Feeling his heart shattering along with mine.
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s—” I hold him tighter, my hands clutching the back of his neck. He is a lifeline to my turbulence. “There’s something I have to do, and I have to do it alone.”
“What is it?” he asks, borderline begs, as he pulls away from me, meeting my eyes.
I bite my lip. Shake my head. “It’s too dangerous.”
His hold on my hand loosens. His resolve wavers. “I can handle myself,” he says. “You know that, don’t you?”
“No”—I shake my head—“I do. It’s…” My heart is composed of jealousy for all the people who get to love and not suffer at the hands of it.
I should have never spoken to Azaire in the woods. Should have never let him follow me out of class. Shouldn’t have told him about Aeliana and Persiphis.
Stay away from people; always keep your distance; watch when you’re lonely; retreat when you’re not. Never get close. That’s what I have to do. What I’ve always done.
That’s my life.
So I fight the words that almost make it to my tongue but get caught coming up my throat: I do love you. I love you, I love you, I love you.
I love you so much, I’m willing to lose you.
“I’m sorry.”
“No.” Azaire releases my hands, his breath catching.
“You don’t get to do that. I love you, Wendy, and I’m pretty sure that you love me.
If you’re fighting, I fight with you. If you’re suffering, I suffer with you.
You are a part of me, body, mind, soul, and whatever else there is.
I’m not letting you go. Not without a damn good reason. ”
I look at our hands, unclasped. “You just did.”
He picks them up. “No, I didn’t.”
I smile a little at his softness, in the wake of my cruelty. My cruel responsibility. I break his heart, I break my own, and he stands before me, his loyalty unwavering.
He is everything I ever wanted.
I loosen my hold on his hand. “I’m so sorry.”
“You don’t have to protect me,” he says, sounding almost resigned. “I’d kill for you. I’d unmake myself for you, if that’s what you wanted.”
I shake my head. “That’s not what I want.”
“Then what is it? Do you want to hide me away until the danger passes? It’ll never pass. I’ve been in danger my entire life.”
I glance down. “I know.”
Azaire picks up my cheek, meeting my gaze, voice soft. “Then what is it?”
Again, I shake my head. There’s so many words, yet so few will articulate what I mean.
I am a garden of agony, and I should have never planted him here.
“I can’t be the reason someone else gets hurt,” I say at last—what I’ve been dancing around.
It shouldn’t feel this awful to be so well understood. Azaire doesn’t fight me, nor does he have a bit of push back. He knows what I mean.
He knows me, and he still wants me.
But even that doesn’t dull the blade in my heart, carving out piece after piece.
“If this is all we have”—he cradles my cheek in his hand, and I lean into him—“I refuse to regret it.”
I whisper, “Tell me that tomorrow.”
?
I knock twice on Ms. Ferner’s door. I never used to—never needed to. She always knew I was coming.
I’m sure I would’ve heard if she died, but when she doesn’t immediately answer, I wonder if that was a wrong assumption.
Until she calls, “Come in.”
When I step inside, she’s surprised. She knows we have a history—she only forgets why we have one. Why she ever cared to help me.
“Hi.” I try to smile. My only reason for coming is to see if she’s alive.
I fear that she feels that.
“Estridon,” she replies with a nod. “What brings you in?”
“It’s been a while… since we’ve talked.” I shuffle my weight between my feet. “I wanted to ask how you were.”
“I’m the same as I always am, Estridon.” She tips her head toward me, raising an eyebrow. “And you don’t have to ask.”
“I know…”
“Don’t waste my time on niceties.”
“I wanted to apologize,” I blurt out. “We stopped speaking, I should have explained.”
Ms. Ferner steps out from behind her desk, walking toward me. “There’s no need for explanations,” she says. “Our relationship was never personal. I’m your teacher.”
Her mind is a seesaw, tipping with every touch. She doesn’t care for my power, I made sure of that—to protect Azaire. But not caring about my powers doesn’t mean she doesn’t care for me, and it’s left her in an in-between she’s still learning to manage.
“And I wanted to thank you…” I whisper. “You helped me a lot, with my power.”
“Did I?” She stops in front of me. “Because all I recall is you never being able to contain yourself.”