22 #5
At last, Asta found her voice. ‘Felix, I don’t understand.
You came here still hating me, not sure if I tried to murder you.
’ She opened and closed her hands, as if grasping for something to hold on to, but they were empty.
‘And then all of a sudden, you want to be friends again. And then’ – she glanced at the bed – ‘that happened. What the fuck is going on?’
Felix got to his feet and paced to the bed.
‘No, I never hated you, Asta. I blamed you, but I never hated you. I can’t hate you.
’ He looked down at the carpet. ‘It’s just – I didn’t know what to believe.
But then you told me – do you remember you said this?
– you said that you can see the real me.
And it’s true. You’re the only one, literally the only person who doesn’t see an image of me, but me. ’
Asta crossed her arms over her chest and hugged herself.
‘That’s when I knew you couldn’t have done it.
You couldn’t have hated me enough to hurt me like that but then still cared enough to bother looking for me, to bother seeing me like you do, after all this time.
They were wrong about you. I was wrong, and I knew it.
I had to make it up to you because I love you, Asta.
I always have. I was wrong, and I’m sorry. ’
Asta’s mind was whirling. She hadn’t done it. She hadn’t cut him off. She waited for something to lift in her. It was his fault, that he had fallen, not hers. She hadn’t been the one to hurt him.
But she had hurt him. In his quiet way, he had tried to ask for what he wanted. She had ignored him. What right did she have claiming to see the real Felix? He had made his life about her, and she had let him. Why hadn’t he told her? It was all so tangled and awful.
Here he was, her beautiful, complicated Felix, standing right in front of her, finally giving her permission to let go of the past and love him with wild abandon – but her thoughts, her feelings were in chaos. She couldn’t make sense of the thousand questions swirling in her head.
‘That’s why you brought your parents to defend me to the board? To make it up to me?’ Asta’s whole body was shaking, and she gripped the stool hard. ‘Were you trying to buy me back, Felix?’
‘No, I—’
‘Really? You weren’t trying to fix things just by being a Seraphin, because that’s what you do?’
Felix’s face paled.
‘You tell me you love me, but why couldn’t you believe that I loved you? Not your name. Not your dragons. Not all the things you could give me. You.’
Felix looked at her, afraid. ‘You love racing. What else could I offer—’
‘You don’t have to give racing to me, Felix.’ Asta’s throat grew tight around her words.
Tears slipped from Felix’s eyes, and he wiped them as they fell. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’
‘Felix—’
‘Asta, I’m so sorry.’
Asta went to him and took his hands. ‘I’m sorry, too.
You shouldn’t have had to make yourself miserable just so that I could be happy.
I should have seen it. I shouldn’t have let you do it.
That’s never what I needed from you. You know that, right?
I found a way to race without you, but I never figured out how to live without you.
The thought that I did something to hurt you – it killed me.
I have been beating myself up about it every day since. Every day.’
A look of panic entered Felix’s reddened eyes. ‘Do you hate me now? Now that you know?’
‘No. Never.’ Asta squeezed his hands, then let go so that he could lift his shirt and wipe his eyes. ‘But can I ask you something?’
The light creeping around the curtains was growing thinner and thinner. Soon they would be in total darkness.
Asta pushed on. ‘Today in the race. The Ricochet. You were testing me, weren’t you? To see if I would drop.’
Felix’s eyes sank to the ground.
Asta took a soft, quick breath. ‘No, you were testing yourself. To see if you would catch me.’ Asta felt as heavy as iron and tired. So tired. ‘No more tests. That’s not how this works.’
‘I know,’ Felix murmured. ‘I know.’
What they had was so fragile, so tender. How easily it could all fall apart.
Asta spoke in a clear, low voice. ‘You asked me, the other day, if I ever wanted to go back in time.’
Felix nodded in acknowledgement.
‘I don’t want to go back. I don’t know if you noticed, but what we did back then didn’t go so well. I want to try something we’ve never done before.’
Felix looked at her, his expression open and clear.
Asta studied his face. Even under the deep shadows of the half dark, she could see that this was no Felix she had ever known. It was a new one – the real one.
‘Let’s hold on to each other this time,’ she asked the man in front of her. ‘No matter what.’
‘Yes.’ He closed his eyes in solemn agreement, tears spilling down his cheeks.
She kissed his damp cheek and turned to pick her race suit up off the floor.
She stepped into it and zipped it up. She found her helmet, her gloves.
She paused in front of Felix, looking one more time into his eyes the color of a dry summer.
Then she left, closing the door gently behind her.