Split Second

He grunted and turned up the volume on the television.

Now that Eli was better, I realized how ungrateful I had been to Connor. I knocked on the train door. It didn’t take as long for him to slide it open this time, but he still opened it only half a foot.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hey. Is he okay?”

“Better.” I cleared my throat. “Thank you.”

“How’d those words taste in your mouth?”

“Awful.”

He smiled. We stood there in silence. He didn’t offer to let me in, and I knew it was because he wanted me to ask. He liked to make things hard on me.

“Can I come in?”

“Why?”

“Because I want to talk.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re here, and I want to know why.”

He rolled his eyes and started to shut the door. I put my hand on the edge. “Because you need me, and I’ve never needed anyone more than I need you.”

He pulled me inside and against him before I even finished the sentence. I clung to him, letting down the defenses I’d tried so hard to keep in place. I felt exhausted without them. Maybe he was tired too, because his hand shook a little against my back. I met his eyes. This close I could see the brown that seemed to surface from the center of a pool of green.

“Why are you here?” I asked him.

“I figured this was the closest place we had to live like I would on the Outside.”

“You like it there?” I wasn’t sure, because he’d seemed so upset on the way home. “You should’ve shown me your favorite places.”

“You were too busy hanging out with Duke.”

“Forced necessity.”

He shrugged.

“Were you jealous?”

“Insanely,” he said in a low voice.

I laughed.

“You find that amusing?” His hand, still pressed against my back, pulled me closer. Energy shot up my spine.

“Yes, I do.” But I wasn’t going to reassure him that I thought of Duke next to never and him all the time. A little fear in a guy was healthy.

But then he said, “Do I have reason to be?”

And I couldn’t help but say, “Never.”

His lips moved to mine and pressed softly against them, teasing me. I didn’t like to be teased. I put my arms around his neck and pulled his face to me. “Don’t make me regret this,” I said against his mouth.

“I’m surprised you don’t already.”

I smiled. He knew me well. Maybe better than I wanted him to, but maybe just as much as I needed him to. The cold air surrounded us, but I felt warm against him. His breath on my mouth, his hands on my back, his chest against mine. Unlike our first kiss, this one was soft and thoughtful. It made me ache inside with more joy than I had ever felt. Now I knew what he meant when he said there was a difference between real and manufactured happiness.

I wanted to stay this way, lost in him, but I knew we needed to talk. “Go sit over there so we can talk.”

He looked behind him to the bed I was pointing to, and I sat down on the opposite bed.

“And you’re going to sit there? We have to be separated to talk?”

“Yes, actually.”

“Why?”

“Just go sit.”

He laughed the kind of laugh that meant he knew his nearness would prevent any talking and plopped onto his back on the bed across from me. The first thing he said was, “I wasn’t supposed to meet you.”

“What?”

“You threw off my list. I had it figured out. The reasons for going, the ones for staying.”

I tucked my feet underneath me. “Going was winning?”

“Yes.”

“And now?”

“And now you.” He stared at the ceiling. “You wouldn’t want to leave, would you?”

“No.” Not even if Addie stayed with her dad. My brothers were here. As at home as Addie felt out there, I felt like a foreigner. “I won’t ask you to stay for me, Connor. There’s no way I want you to wake up one day full of bitterness and realize I’m to blame.” Good thing he was ten feet away or I might not have been able to say that. I might have begged him to stay.

“He wasn’t a Norm.”

It took my brain a little while to place the words. “Your dad?”

“He was Telepathic.”

“Was?” I moved onto my back, mirroring his position of staring at the metal ceiling of the train.

“He begged me day and night. My mom begged me not to. . . .”

“Begged you for what?”

“To Heal him.”

Those words hung in the air above us, clinging to the cold, waiting for me to figure them out.

“I was twelve,” he finally said. “I didn’t understand. He just told me that there was a part of his brain that was overdeveloped. That he wanted it to be made whole.” He sounded so anguished. “I Healed him of his ability.”

“Healed him of it . . .” It took a long moment for that to click. The words and the cold rained down on me, numbing my cheeks. “Made him Normal?”

“Yes.”

“Is that what he wanted?”

“No. He had this theory that if a Healer could make a section of his brain a little closer to Normal, it would make him more in control of when and what he heard. But he could never get a Healer to do it.”

I could hear my breaths. Is this what you did for people you cared about? Listened to their horrible pasts? I didn’t know what to say. That was a memory that should be kept deep down inside him and never brought out. Like the time my father gave me a black eye and split open my lip. Not even my dad got to remember that one.

Now was the time I was supposed to say something. Anything. “Wow. That sucks. Too bad you can’t have your memories Erased.”

He started laughing. Low and quiet at first and then deep and full.

“What’s so funny?” I couldn’t help but smile at the sound.

“My mom made me go to a therapist for about a year after my dad left the Compound.”

“A therapist? As in someone you talk to? I didn’t even know we had those in the Compound. Why didn’t they just give you some programs to ease the guilt?”

“Not a lot of stuff works on a Healer. But anyway, the therapist told me over and over again that I was only twelve, I didn’t know any better. My dad shouldn’t have made me do that. And you, after five years of guilt, confirm that my guilt is justified and my life sucks.”

“Yeah, well, I’m probably just projecting. I would’ve found a sick pleasure in wiping my dad of his ability. I’m sure you felt genuinely horrified.”

He didn’t argue the point.

“And so if you deny yourself the opportunities to use your ability by living on the Outside, somehow you’ve righted a wrong? You’ve taken your punishment?”

He drew a breath and let it out slowly. “You’re the only person I’ve used my ability on in years.”

“You suppressing your ability is not going to return his. Especially your ability, Connor. One that can help so many. That therapist was right. It wasn’t your fault. You are only going to make bad worse.” I rolled on my side to face him. “Look at me being all motivational and crap. Did you hear that? That was some good stuff. I don’t think Addie could’ve said it better.”

He smiled a ghost of a smile at the ceiling. His hands rested on his chest, and he let the arm closest to me fall open to the side and then gave a slight beckoning movement with his fingers.

“Are you wanting me to come over there? Because that was the lamest effort ever after my amazing display of advice-giving skills.”

“Get over here.”

“I’m only coming over there because I’m freezing and you have a blanket.” I crawled across the metal floor to him, and he pulled me into a tight hug.

“You’re the first person, outside of my family and the therapist, of course, that I’ve told.”

I ran my hand along his chest. “So do you ever talk to your mom about it?”

“Initially. But she’s moved on.”

“And what about your dad? You said before that you don’t know him now.”

“He hasn’t talked to me since he left.” His hand went to my arm, and he seemed to absentmindedly run his fingers along it, his thoughts far off. “I tried to see him.”

“When?”

As his fingers brushed my arm, small tingles of energy moved along my skin, leaving a trail of goose bumps. Was he doing that on purpose? Did he even realize that his touch was almost electric? It must have been related to his ability, and it was driving me crazy.

“I saw him once a few years ago and once a few days ago.”

My breath seeped slowly into the air and created a tiny puff of fog in the coldness. “That’s who you went to see when we were in Dallas? That’s what was in Bowie, Texas?”

“Yes. But I couldn’t do it. I drove a hundred and fifty miles and couldn’t force myself to walk the last twenty steps to his door.”

No wonder he’d looked so torn up the next day.

“When he was sentenced to leave the Compound, I couldn’t look him in the eyes. And I still can’t.”

“What?” I propped myself up on my elbow, taking my arm back so I could concentrate. “They forced him to leave? I didn’t know they did that.”

He met my eyes. “They do, and I’m pretty sure he still blames me.”

“He should blame himself.”

He took a few deep breaths in and out. “It’s easier to blame someone else.”

“You don’t seem to have a problem blaming yourself.” I searched his eyes, needing him to release the pain I saw there. “Why don’t you blame me for a while? Give yourself a break?”

He gave a single laugh. “Because you had nothing to do with it.”

“Only slightly less than you did.”

He squeezed his eyes shut and then pulled me back into his arms. “Thank you,” he whispered against my hair.

“How did that taste in your mouth?”

He laughed. “Awful.”

CHAPTER 35

Addie: Apparently, I have no self-control.

I wasn’t sure what to say to Stephanie. I had wanted to talk to Trevor about it. Ask him what I should tell her, but it seemed weird to ask him how I should talk to his ex about my feelings. I knew that no matter how I told Stephanie I liked Trevor, I was going to sound like the biggest jerk. More than a jerk.

Whatever I decided to tell her, the time to do it was not as we got ready for winter formal in her bedroom. Not with the huge football poster plastered on the wall behind her, Trevor’s face circled with a heart. Not with pictures I hadn’t seen last time of her and Trevor taped all around her mirror. No, tonight was most definitely not a good time to tell her.

“How are you doing your hair?” Stephanie asked as she applied another layer of mascara.

“I was thinking just down. Is that not good?”

“You should put it up in a loose twist and let some curls hang around your face and down your neck. It would look really hot. You want me to do it?”