Chapter 27
A KIDNAPPING? WORSE: A HEART-TO-HEART
SEYOON
As soon as I’ve managed to fall asleep, somebody shakes me awake.
I groan in complaint, swiping at the touch and burrowing farther into my pillow. But there’s no light to hide from, and as consciousness begins to probe at my sleepy mind, I realize it’s still dead quiet inside the room. It can’t be morning yet.
Curious, I roll over. My eyes adjust to the dim light until I can faintly make out the shadowy silhouette standing next to my bed. Panic seizes my breath, and I scramble up.
“Fu—mmrf!”
A palm covers my mouth. I’m about to bite it when the familiar clean scent of citrus and something woodsy hits me. I settle down. Warily, the person removes their hand.
“… Dean?” I whisper.
“Yeah.”
I punch blindly, my fist connecting partially with something soft. He groans and doubles over.
“What the hell are you doing standing over my bed like a serial killer?” I hiss, careful not to wake up anyone else in the cabin. It’s still too dark to make out anything, but rhythmic breathing and snores continue to sound through the room.
“Sorry,” he whispers back, breathier than normal. I might’ve hit a respiratory organ. “Can you follow me?”
I wait, but Dean doesn’t elaborate, nor does he go away. If I ask any more questions, we might wake somebody up, so with a sigh, I shove my blanket off and leave the warm, cozy comfort of my bed. Dean waits while I fumble around in the dark for a hoodie, then we head outside.
“You’re lucky I don’t need my beauty rest, but it’s still rude to drag me out into the cold at… what, two in the morning?” It’s definitely past filming hours, at least. The cameras are absent. “What’s this about?”
“It’ll be worth it, I promise,” Dean says. There’s a little more light out here from the moon. My eyes strain to trace the hesitant smile on his face.
I don’t know what I’m expecting, but it certainly isn’t for him to lead us away from camp and down one of the trails in the woods, guiding us by flashlight like he knows exactly where he’s going.
I follow slightly behind, still upset, but too curious to turn back.
We walk for a good ten minutes before he veers off the path and into the forest.
It’s a small clearing. A pile of blankets lay across the grass in the middle, with a warm, flickering lantern in the middle.
“Join me,” Dean says, already sitting down. I can’t get my feet to follow.
“Why?”
“Don’t you like stargazing?”
“I love it,” I answer warily. “How do you know that, though?”
“You told me. Back during the survival skills challenge.”
Did I? I think back to that night, lying stiff as a board next to Dean in our cramped tent, nervously babbling about any- and everything. I did.
“You remembered.” My voice is so small, one of the breezes filtering through the trees could have carried my words away, but Dean hears. He nods. I rub my throat, suddenly tight. “You were half asleep by that point.”
“It was hard to fall asleep when you kept talking my ear off.” There’s a hint of humor lacing his voice, though. He was listening to me. Not everyone does. “Sit. Please?”
I do, toeing my shoes off and joining him on the blankets.
The grass pokes through the fabric and tickles my feet.
Dean sits with his legs crossed, facing me, his hands fluttering in his lap, twisting each finger and rubbing over the knuckles.
His anxiety seeps through the short distance between us and makes my stomach flip.
For the first time, I’m the one having trouble meeting his eyes.
“What is this?” I ask.
“Isn’t it obvious?”
The absolute opposite. I shake my head.
Dean pushes his curls out of his face as an excuse to do something with his hands besides fidget with them. When did I start recognizing that for what it is?
“It’s supposed to be an apology.”
“Those aren’t usually this intimate.”
“Well, yes, but I figured a romantic gesture is necessary when you’re asking a girl to take you back.”
My cheeks explode with warmth.
“Even if it’s just for a pretend relationship,” Dean adds hastily.
I bury my face into my hands. “We already hashed this out earlier. We’re back together. You didn’t have to do all this.”
“That was for the cameras. This is for you.”
My head whips up.
“I should have had your back. I should have stood up for you.” The lamp plays across the nervous, guilty expression on Dean’s face. “I was a terrible ally, and a terrible friend. I said some things I regret. I’m sorry, Seyoon.”
I didn’t expect this. The earnest apology takes me so off guard that it’s a few moments before I’m able to react.
Shaking my head, I pull at the blades of grass that poke up through the threads of the blanket, my fingers quivering.
“I’m sorry, too,” I mutter. “We needed those points, and I know you were looking out for us. For me. I guess I… I was upset that you didn’t think we could do it.
Find enough artifacts on our own. It hurt because I believed in us, but you—” Oh Christ. This is humiliating. “But you didn’t believe in me.”
What he said after the challenge replays in my mind now. As much as I tried to ignore it, or pretend like it didn’t hurt, or that my confidence is bulletproof, it isn’t. And it did hurt.
I try to salvage the mood with a laugh, but it just sounds pathetic and bitter.
“Maybe that was egotistical thinking, though. Arrogance. You were right about that. And about a lot of things. It’s true, I’m not the winner I think I am.
I’m not a lot of things. I’m not smart enough, good enough—somehow though, I’m still too much. ”
Shut up, Seyoon. Shut up. But I can’t. And it’s not just my hands that are shaking; it’s my vision, jumping and blurring like letters on a page.
Hot shame douses over me like it did when I tried to read that riddle in the first challenge.
The same way it does each time Appa sighs in exasperation upon seeing my report card.
Guilt churns my gut in a manner I haven’t felt since the last time I saw Amelia, when I didn’t have the courage to tell her everything that was wrong with me, so I lied and said that I was okay, that there was no reason I had ignored her dozens of calls since moving.
Why am I like this?
I want to carve it out—the thing inside me, the thing that made Appa leave, the thing that pushed Amelia away—before it consumes me whole. Before Dean sees it and leaves me, too.
Something wet and weak gathers at my lash line. But then gentle fingers graze the thin skin below my eyes and wipe my tears before they can fall.
I look up.