“Nina. It’s okay. Read it,” he said, taking a finger and flipping open the cover to the first page.
I spent the stormy afternoon with my head propped up against Jared, reading his private thoughts. Once I’d pored over the first few pages, the guilt slipped away and I found myself absorbed in every word. It was an odd sensation reading my memories from pages written at a time when I didn’t know he existed.
I chewed on my thumbnail as I read through my life from the outside. Jared played with my hair; otherwise he sat motionless and silent. Half way through one of his more lengthy entries, I realized it was written the night he’d taken a bullet for me.
…Claire extracted the bullet. I’ve been angry, but this time I was furious. I saw that bastard aim at her and I wanted to tear his head from his neck. I couldn’t end his life fast enough. That’s one less of Donovan’s men that will go after her, but it doesn’t make me feel better. I can’t figure it out. I yelled at Claire to finish so I could go back to Nina. I couldn’t even explain to Claire what I was so mad about, because I don’t know myself. The need to get back to her was ridiculous, because I knew that Dad was with her. She’d gone home by then, but I had to be near her and I was angry that I felt that way.
It’s like I’ve been addicted to her, but I didn’t know it until tonight. As if I didn’t already have to be near her to protect her, now I just need to be near her. It’s infuriating.
So now I’m here, watching her talk to Cynthia. I still don’t know what my problem is. For the first time, I was afraid that I would fail. And not just fail—that I would fail HER. Claire accuses me of being a perfectionist, maybe that’s what it is. Or maybe I just didn’t want to let her down. But why the hell should I care? She wouldn’t know either way. I don’t want her to die, but that should be obvious, right? She dies, I die.
Maybe I just care. And that wouldn’t be a bad thing… for me to care about her. She’s a sweet girl. She’s kind to others. She’s intelligent. She’s comically stubborn. She does that cute tuck-her-hair-behind-her-ear thing when she’s nervous. She’s beautiful… unbelievably beautiful. Anyone with any sense would care about her…spending all this time around her, I guess it was inevitable. But this is more than just caring. If I wasn’t bleeding all over myself I would have grabbed her and…I don’t know. What am I thinking? She can’t know about me. Maybe that’s what I’m angry about. Maybe I want her to know I’m protecting her. I think a part of me wants her to know. She’s walking around her house and has no idea that I saved her life today. And that should bother me WHY? She shouldn’t know. She shouldn’t know that I protect her or that I care about her or that I think she’s beautiful. Wouldn’t that be ridiculous if I had feelings for her? But maybe that’s what it is. Maybe it’s more than that. I think it’s more than that.
I think I’m in love with her.
I looked up from the pages of Jared’s journal to see that he was watching for my reaction. I pulled myself up quickly and scrambled to kiss him. His mouth turned up into a smile as I pressed my lips against his, so I pulled back to look into his eyes. His expression was triumphant.
I took in a deep breath to speak, but Jared’s face twisted into a frown. “Don’t say ‘aw’.”
I shook my head quickly. “I wasn’t! I was most certainly not going to say ‘aw’. That was amazing, thank you.”
“You should read the night of your sixteenth birthday. Or the day you graduated from high school. Or the night you went out with Philip Jacobs.”
I wrinkled my nose. “I don’t think I want to relive my sixteenth birthday. And I know I don’t want to relive the three hours with Philip Jacobs. Yech.”
Jared smiled. “I could read it to you. And I’ll leave out the parts you don’t want to hear.”
I leaned back against him, settling in to hear my life through Jared’s eyes.
I was amazed at how much he loved me for so long, and how he fought the sometimes insufferable longing to speak to me. There were parts that were difficult to listen to, and parts that—if I had wanted to interrupt him, which I didn’t—I wanted him to go back and read again.
He skipped to the entry he wrote the day of my high school graduation. He wrote how proud of me he was, and how beautiful I looked in my cap in gown. He spoke of how happy I felt and wondered where my college years would take us. Jared wrote a lot about being worried that once we gained distance between us and Gabe and Jack, that he would introduce himself.