26 #3
‘I thought, “Was it a trap? Was she working for the Bruces all along?” I kept waiting, all last night, for someone to burst in here and say that you told them I was the one who gave you the cord – that I had made it, and I was powering it.’ He sighed.
‘And then, after a while, I sort of went from being afraid that you had told them to hoping you would. I started thinking maybe this was my chance.’
‘Your chance for what?’ Asta murmured, stunned.
He began to pace, and Asta watched him walk from the edge of the bed to the counter and back again.
‘To get out, once and for all. See, if I went to my parents one-on-one, told them I was done racing, it wouldn’t work – they’d find some way to manipulate me, to talk me out of it, and put me right back on the track.
’ Asta knew it was true. ‘But confessing to the board that I had helped you cheat? That would embarrass the whole family. I would be a stain on the Seraphin name – and if there is one thing they cannot overlook, it’s that.
They wouldn’t let me race for them again.
So I quit waiting for you to do it, and I did it myself. I told them.’
He stopped pacing and looked into Asta’s eyes. The bright morning light was streaming through his windows, reflecting off the tile, and drawing out glimmering flecks of gold in the hazel of his eyes, as if they were filled with magic.
‘You did it,’ Asta said quietly.
Felix’s peaceful expression clouded. ‘But what I can’t figure out is why the hell you didn’t tell me?’
‘I couldn’t,’ Asta whispered, her voice failing.
‘I can’t say you didn’t warn me. “Don’t trust me,” you said. I knew you were up to something. I didn’t know you were going to use me to hand the race to Natalia-fucking-Bruce.’
Asta pleaded with him. ‘I didn’t know what else to do. I had to do what he wanted. I had to stop him from hurting anyone else – from hurting you.’
Felix’s eyes widened, but he didn’t say anything.
‘This was the only way.’ Asta could hear the lack of conviction in her own voice. She had stopped Hummer this time, perhaps, but who could stop him now?
Soft sounds of conversation filtered in from the sidewalk. From the stables, the stirring and grunting of dragons.
Asta twisted the tattered red cuff of her sweatshirt around her finger, pulling it so tight it hurt. ‘If I told you, then you’d be complicit.’
Felix’s eyes flashed with frustration. He flicked his fingers, and the illusion on the counter died away. ‘That’s not our deal, Asta. You don’t get to make decisions for me. You taught me that, don’t you remember? I told you that I would be there for the hard parts.’
‘But I couldn’t ask you to do this. You would have regretted it.
Or you would have stopped me.’ Asta stuffed her hands into the pouch of her sweatshirt.
‘I did what I had to do. And I screwed it up after all – you and me. All on my own. You should have just stayed away.’ She held still, waiting for him to say something.
At last, Felix broke the silence. ‘Here’s the thing, Asta,’ he said, his voice low and clipped.
Asta wanted to clamp her hand over his mouth and stop him from saying whatever it was he was going to say.
All these years of loving him, of aching for him, and it was all going to end now, because she had gone and done the same thing he had done to her, the thing that had nearly broken them once already.
She had not trusted him to love her if he knew who she really was: a breakable woman, filled with fear, who could let her dreams become corrupted.
She had told herself that she was protecting him, but the truth was, she was afraid that if he knew the real choice before him, he wouldn’t choose her.
If only she could stay there with him in that room for a little longer and extend the moment before she truly lost everything.
He drew a deep breath. ‘I can’t stay away from you. And I don’t want to.’
Asta’s heart, which had faded to a cold gray lump in her chest, glowed again like an ember under the bellows.
He stepped so close that she could feel the heat from his body, smell his summertime scent.
‘And you didn’t screw anything up “all on your own”. In case you’ve forgotten, I had a pretty big head start on you in the screwing-things-up department. Let’s say we’re even, yeah?’ A smile glimmered in his eyes.
Asta could hardly catch her breath.
‘You told me I couldn’t trust you yesterday, but that I could trust you today, right? So, I’m in. I trust you.’ He smiled for real now. ‘And I say it’s time we invent a new trick. We can call it the Side by Side.’ He reached for her neck, and his hand was cool.
She reached back for him, her thumb just in front of his ear, and returned his smile. ‘That’s a dumb name. What’s the trick?’
‘Looks simple, but it’s actually quite difficult.
We stay right in line with each other, the whole way.
Over all the obstacles, in the air, down the homestretch – we take it all together, side by side.
Thus, the name. All the way over the finish line.
’ He hesitated. ‘Not that either of us are allowed anywhere near a finish line anymore, but . . .’
He meant it as a joke, but hearing the words out loud filled Asta with sadness. Suddenly, she was acutely aware that her body hurt. Her brain hurt. Her heart hurt.
‘It’s over! I can’t believe I’ll never race again. Felix, what did I do?’
Felix reached into his pocket and drew something out. ‘I think you just graduated.’
Asta stared at him. ‘What?’
Felix opened his hand to reveal a small, flat rock, glittering with mica. A dry flake of lichen clung to it, pale with age. He handed it to her, his smile turning coy.
‘Took a little longer than expected, but it’s graduation day.’
Tracing the rock with her finger, Asta remembered the day she had given it to Felix.
How full of dreams she had been then, and all of them bringing her here.
What now? Before them lay a future with no edges, no guideposts, no courses to follow.
All she knew was that she would go into it with him. Side by side.
Felix looked at her hopefully. ‘I think you said you would kiss me now.’
She reached for him, kissing him softly, and he took her in his arms. He kissed her back with such force that they tumbled on to the bed.
He tasted like the springtime woods – fragrant ferns and small white blossoms beside a running stream.
He kissed her, and his lips were soft and sweet as ripened fruit.
He kissed her, and she was filled with fire. He kissed her, and she flew.
Over his shoulder, a glittering illusion crept across the ceiling.
It was the mountain behind his parents’ house where they had seen the wild dragons.
Trees and grasses sprang from the earth and filled in the scene.
As they undressed each other, its light playing on their bare skin, a little path emerged that wound its way up and out of sight between the trees.