I pulled her face into mine with both hands. When our lips touched, I could feel the warmth from my body seep into the coldness of hers. I could feel her body melting into mine, the inexplicable pull that had bound us together from the beginning, bringing us together again. Lena dropped her books and wrapped her arms around my neck, responding to my touch. I was becoming light-headed.
The bell rang. She pushed away from me, gasping. I bent down to pick up her copy of Bukowski’s Pleasures of the Damned and her battered spiral notebook. The notebook was practically falling apart, but then again, she’d had a lot to write about lately.
You shouldn’t have done that.
Why not? You’re my girlfriend, and I miss you.
Fifty-four days, Ethan. That’s all I have. It’s time to stop pretending we can change things. It’ll be easier if we both accept it.
There was something about the way she said it, like she was talking about more than just her birthday.
She was talking about other things we couldn’t change.
She turned away, but I caught her arm before she could turn her back on me. If she was saying what I thought she was saying, I wanted her to look at me when she said it.
“What do you mean, L?” I almost couldn’t ask.
She looked away. “Ethan, I know you think this can have a happy ending, and for a while maybe I did, too. But we don’t live in the same world, and in mine, wanting something badly enough won’t make it happen.” She wouldn’t look at me. “We’re just too different.”
“Now we’re too different? After everything we’ve been through?” My voice was getting louder. A couple of people turned and stared at me. They didn’t even look at Lena.
We are different. You’re a Mortal and I’m a Caster, and those worlds might intersect, but they’ll never be the same. We aren’t meant to live in both.
What she was saying was she wasn’t meant to live in both. Emily and Savannah, the basketball team, Mrs. Lincoln, Mr. Harper, the Jackson Angels, they were all finally getting what they wanted.
This is about the disciplinary meeting, isn’t it? Don’t let them— It isn’t just about the meeting. It’s everything. I don’t belong here, Ethan. And you do.
So now I’m one of them. Is that what you’re saying?
She closed her eyes and I could almost see her thoughts, tangled up in her mind.
I’m not saying you’re like them, but you are one of them. This is where you’ve lived your whole life.
And after this is all over, after I’m Claimed, you’re still going to be here. You’re going to have to walk down these halls and those streets again, and I probably won’t be there. But you will, for who knows how long, and you said it yourself—people in Gatlin never forget anything.
Two years.
What?
That’s how long I’ll be here.
Two years is a long time to be invisible. Trust me, I know.
For a minute, neither of us said anything. She just stood there, pulling shreds of paper from the wire spine of her notebook. “I’m tired of fighting it. I’m tired of trying to pretend I’m normal.”
“You can’t give up. Not now, not after everything. You can’t let them win.”
“They already have. They won the day I broke the window in English.”
There was something about her voice that told me she was giving up on more than just Jackson. “Are you breaking up with me?” I was holding my breath.
“Please don’t make this harder. It’s not what I want, either.”
Then don’t do it.
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. It was like time had stopped again, the way it had at Thanksgiving dinner. Only this time, it wasn’t magic. It was the opposite of magic.
“I just think things will be easier this way. It doesn’t change the way I feel about you.” She looked up at me, her big green eyes sparkling with tears. Then she turned and fled down a hallway that was so quiet you could’ve heard a pencil drop.
Merry Christmas, Lena.
But there was nothing to hear. She was gone, and that wasn’t something I would have been ready for, not in fifty-three days, not in fifty-three years, not in fifty-three centuries.
Fifty-three minutes later, I sat alone, staring out the window, which was a statement right there, considering how crowded the lunchroom was. Gatlin was gray; the clouds had drifted in. I wouldn’t call it a storm, exactly; it hadn’t snowed in years. If we were lucky, we got a flurry or two, maybe once a year. But it hadn’t snowed a single day since I was twelve.
I wished it would snow. I wished I could hit rewind and be back in the hallway with Lena. I wished I could tell her I didn’t care if everyone in this town hated me, because it didn’t matter. I was lost before I found her in my dreams, and she found me that day in the rain. I knew it seemed like I was always the one trying to save Lena, but the truth was she had saved me, and I wasn’t ready for her to stop now.
“Hey, man.” Link slid onto the bench across from me at the empty table. “Where’s Lena? I wanted to thank her.”
“For what?”
Link pulled a piece of folded notebook paper out of his pocket. “She wrote me a song. Pretty cool, huh?” I couldn’t even look at it. She was talking to Link, just not to me.
Link grabbed a slice of my untouched pizza. “Listen, I got a favor to ask you.”