The words stung, but not as much as the way he said them.
“In any case,” he said, “about the pendant, at least now we know that at some point, your grandmother and my mother crossed paths through whoever made them. I’ll look through her things and see if I can find anything else.”
I was quiet.
“Mara?”
I shook my head. “I shouldn’t have burned the doll, Noah. I should have looked for a seam or something—”
“You couldn’t have known.”
“There was a piece of paper, too.”
“I saw.”
“It could have been the answer to all of this.”
Noah lightly tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “There’s no point worrying about it now.”
“When would be a good time to worry about it?”
Noah shot me a look. “No need to get snippy.”
I bit my lip, then let out a breath. “Sorry,” I said, looking up at his ceiling, following a pattern of swirls in the plaster. “I just—I’m worried about tonight.” My voice tightened. “I don’t want to go to sleep.”
I didn’t know where I’d be when I woke up.
30
NOAH STOOD UP SUDDENLY THEN, AND CROSSED the room. He locked his door as he met my eyes.
“Risky,” I said.
Noah was silent.
“What about our parents?”
“Never mind them.” He moved back to his bed and stood beside it, looking down at me. “I don’t care about them. Tell me what to do and I’ll do it,” he said. “Tell me what you want and it’s yours.”
I want to close my eyes at night and never be afraid that I’ll open them up and see Jude.
I want to wake up in the morning safe in my bed and never worry that I’ve been anywhere else.
“I don’t know,” I said out loud, and my voice had this awful, desperate tinge. “I’m afraid—I’m afraid I’m losing control.”
I’m afraid I’m losing myself.
The idea was a splinter in my mind. Always there, always stinging, even when I wasn’t conscious of it. Even when I wasn’t thinking about it.
Like Jude.
Noah held my gaze. “I won’t let that happen.”
“You can’t stop it,” I said, my throat tightening. “All you can do is watch.”
It was a few seconds before Noah finally spoke. “I have been, Mara.” His voice was aggressively blank.
My eyes filled with infuriating tears. “What do you see?” I asked him.
I knew what I saw when I looked at myself: A stranger. Terrified, terrorized, and weak. Was that what he saw too?
I drew myself up. “Tell me,” I said, my voice edged with steel. “Tell me what you see. Because I don’t know what’s real and what isn’t or what’s new or different and I can’t trust myself, but I trust you.”
Noah closed his eyes. “Mara.”
“You know what?” I said, crossing my arms over my chest, holding myself together. “Don’t tell me, because I might not remember. Write it down, and then maybe someday, if I ever get better, let me read it. Otherwise I’ll change a little bit every day and never know who I was until after I’m gone.”
Noah’s eyes were still closed and the planes of his face were smooth, but I noticed that his hands had curled into fists. “You cannot fathom how much I hate not being able to help you.”
And he couldn’t fathom how much I hated needing help. Noah said before that I wasn’t broken but I was, and he was learning that he couldn’t fix me. But I didn’t want to be the injured bird who needed healing, the sick girl who needed sympathy. Noah was different like me but he wasn’t broken like me. He was never sick or scared. He was strong. Always in control. And even though he’d seen the worst of me, he wasn’t afraid of me.
I wished I wasn’t afraid of myself. I wanted to feel something else.
Noah stood beside his bed, his body taut with tension.
I wanted to feel in control. I wanted to feel him.
“Kiss me,” I said. My voice was sure.
Noah’s eyes opened, but he didn’t move. He was considering me. Trying to gauge whether or not I meant it. He didn’t want to push me before I was ready.
So I had to show him that I was.
I pulled him fiercely into his soft bed and he did not protest. I rolled beneath him and he braced himself above me and his arms were a perfect cage.
We were forehead to forehead. From this angle, it was impossible to ignore the length of his lashes, the way they skimmed his cheekbones when he blinked. It was impossible to ignore the shape of his mouth, the curve of his lips when he said my name.
It was impossible not to want to taste them.
I arched my neck and my hips and stretched my body up toward his. But Noah placed one hand on my waist and very gently pushed me back down.
“Slowly,” he said. The word sent a thrill through every nerve.
Noah leaned down slightly, just slightly, and let his lips brush my neck. My pulse raced at the contact. Noah drew back.
He could hear it, I remembered. Every heartbeat. The way my breathing changed or didn’t. He thought my heart was pounding with fear, not desire.