Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Walking down the halls of school seemed more like scoping out a battle front.
I didn’t know who I would encounter, who would try to break me first. I arrived at my math class and regretted it right away as I saw Karen had Shad pressed against the wall again.
It seemed that I couldn’t even get there early enough to avoid their little shows.
He stood there with his hands in his pockets as she dug her fingers into his hair.
I tried to imagine that he was someone else, that it wasn’t the love of my life, there, with Karen Manning.
But I knew it was. I had kissed those lips, and that mouth—that mouth had made promises to me.
I tried to hold onto that which Shad had left me, the memories and the moments with him.
He told me he loved me, didn't he? He said that he wasn’t himself, and he had asked me to believe in him, even when it wasn’t easy.
I walked up to them. It was easy to do until Shad looked at me.
He had the black eyes of a soulless, but something was different there; it was darker, more black, more gone than ever before.
His eyes looked hollow, and the greyness of his skin made him look sickly.
As Karen moved away to fix her hair in a small mirror that she pulled out of her pocket, I touched his arm.
“Shad, are you okay?” When I touched him, the electricity was there, like it had always been, but it was coated in something, something black and broken, and I flinched away from him.
Was that what corruption could do? Was he corrupted fully?
No, just the night before Keil had said that he was okay, didn’t he?
Did he lie? Shad’s eyes seemed to brighten a bit as he looked at me.
“I am doing well,” he said. His voice didn’t even sound the same. It sounded as if he had been screaming for days, or had been sick, and what was left of his once beautiful voice was rough and broken. Was Karen taking it from him, piece by piece, like some evil siren?
“No, you are not. Have you talked to Keil?” I whispered
“I see him every morning,” he said with annoyance. I moved away as his cold glare made it hard to breathe. He wasn’t Shad; he wasn't my Shad, and I could not live with him falling apart like that. This isn’t okay.
“Do you need—should we kiss—would that help you?” I whispered, even if a part of me was lost to him, if he was a little less broken because of my kisses, if he was less shattered, more himself, wasn't it worth accepting a little corruption on my part?
I could handle it, couldn't I? To become a soulless, doesn't it take a long time to slowly corrupt one's soul?
Kisses here and there to help him would be nothing, right?
“I am always down for kissing.” He moved closer to me, and I saw Karen from the corner of my eye grab his arm.
“Come on, Shad, let's go.” She pulled him into the classroom, and I followed after I had gathered my thoughts and gained enough courage and had tamed the monster inside, getting it to calm down, and I assured myself that I would not attempt to rip Karen's head off.
But I would kiss him again if that was what he needed.
Isn't that what I need, too? I do need it, I need him.
Part of me felt alarmed at that realization.
I would not let Shad take away my soul piece by piece and turn it to blackness.
But even as I said it, as I repeated that phrase inside of my soul, over and over again—it felt like a lie.
As the beast roared and screamed inside of me, I placed my shaking hand on my heart.
The lie brought me to the truth.
I would do it.
I would give myself up for him. I would fight until the breath was sucked from my lungs, until my lungs stopped taking in air, until there was no beating of my heart, until I was buried six feet down under the earth; I would do everything in my power to save him.
If Shad needed me to kiss away the shattered pieces that sliced him from the inside out, I would let myself give in to the monster, and I would give up my soul for him, piece by broken piece, drip by bloody drip, just as my father had bled out on the side of the road to the ticking of his watch—slowly, second by second.
What a sacrifice, to give one's life for the one you love.
There I was: safe. I had lived while he had died.
I didn't know for certain if my father had done anything specific to save me, like if he had turned the car in a specific way to prevent major injury to me.
But I saw the look in his eyes as he saw that I was alive.
I saw the joy that sparked in them, and then the sorrow that replaced it a moment later.
I liked to believe that the sorrow he felt was because he was leaving me behind.
Regardless of whether or not he had done something to save me or if I had survived by pure luck, I knew I was like my father.
I would absolutely sacrifice everything to save the person I loved.
“Do you know how Shad is currently doing?” I stood in the middle of my room, folding the laundry Mary had washed for me the previous evening.
I told her that I could do my laundry myself, but she said that I was still a kid, and she could do that for me.
I had rolled my eyes, but was grateful all the same for Mary and her mothering ways.
She was at the flower shop, so it was just Ryker and me at the house. Ryker sat on the edge of my bed.
“He is slowly being overtaken.” He had, at least, the kindness to look sad as he said it instead of ‘I told you so.’ “I know that you and Keil have this idea that he will be coming back to us, but Emma, he is lost. Every single day, he is closer and closer.”
“Don’t, Okay? Please, I need there to be hope. As soon as you take it away, I have nothing.”
“And if Shad moves on from this life, you have nothing? What am I?” I looked at him, and I saw the hurt there in his eyes.
“I love you, Ry, and of course, you mean so much to me, too. We did go find you and rescue you by the way, so of course, you are important to me.”
Hope seemed to sparkle in his eyes from my words.
“I mean, what did you expect from this relationship with Shad anyway? Did you expect at your age to date and then someday marry him?”
Was it crazy to think that I had hoped for that?
I mean, I honestly had not thought that far ahead, exactly.
Okay maybe just a little. I just knew that it would be me and Shad forever.
I didn’t outline exactly what forever would look like, but I figured that we would have time to figure it out. But, I guess, I had assumed too much.
“I mean, not marry right now, but someday.”
He put his face in his hands and groaned as if the words actually pained him. “I cannot believe this is happening to me,” he said softly.
“What is happening to you?”
“Emma, you have to know, you have to know that I love you.”
“Of course, Ry. I love you, too.” I walked over to him and brushed his sun-kissed hair from his face.
He held my wrist in his hands and looked at me with such an intensity that I gulped.
“No Emma, I mean, I am in love with you—I have been for a while. In the hospital, I don’t regret it. I wanted to kiss you for so long, and I was glad that we finally almost did,” he said softly, as if he had said it too loud, it would hurt him.
“What?” I said, just as quiet. It wasn’t so much of a shock as it was shocking that he said it out loud.
Hadn't I made myself clear that Shad was it for me? That if I couldn’t have Shad, then, I would have no one?
He knew what I felt for Shad. Why would he do that?
I couldn’t lose him as a friend, especially right then, and I knew how selfish that sounded, but he was my closest and dearest friend, and I needed him.
“I know you have feelings for me, too.” He caressed my cheeks, and I wondered if he was going to kiss me, and I wondered what he would do when I turned away. I wasn’t interested in kissing anyone else but Shad. Did I need to scream it from the mountaintops? Because I would if it was necessary.
“I do have feelings for you, Ry. Of course, I do.” I turned away from him, not able to face him as I broke his heart. But I had to be honest, right? I couldn’t fall into his arms and tell him that we could be together when my heart was already taken. “But I just—”
He touched my shoulder and pulled me into his arms.
“You love him more, or in a different way,” he said as I looked up into his grey and blue eyes. I nodded as I watched one single tear fall. I started crying, too, and he cocooned me into his arms and held me, like he always had done, piecing me back together.
“It’s okay, Emma. Really, it will be okay.”
I cried for breaking his heart, for the loss of Shad, for having to befriend Cade, for having Ryker comfort me when I just broke him, for hating myself for what I had done. For everything, I cried.
“I do love you, Ry,” I whimpered as I pulled away from him.
“I am sorry, Em. I should not have pushed you; I am so sorry.” He looked worried, and I smiled the best smile I could manage through the tears, trying to sound playful.
“Ry, are things going to be different between us, now?”
“Believe it or not, I already knew your answer. As disappointing as it is to hear out loud, I cannot blame you for being honest, and saying what I knew you would.” He brushed my cheek, freeing a tear and then focused on my lips, as he licked his.
“You are too good for me anyways,” I said.
He laughed, pulling me closer to him and placing his chin on top of my head.
“I have always known it.”
“I promise you, it is entirely the opposite. But just know, Emma, if ever you change your mind, or if ever there is no Shad—” He paused as I flinched in his arms. “I will always be here for you; I am not going anywhere. I will always be whatever you need.”