“Then wake up,” he says gently.
I am awake, more awake than ever, and I’m sitting in his kitchen in a threadbare tee shirt. It barely covers my port. My legs have never felt so long and naked. I didn’t consciously plan to be here, but somewhere along the way, I made the choices that brought me here.
He comes around the counter, slowly, so I could back away if I wanted to. I manage to get off the stool, but I’m still right there, in reach, when he stops in front of me. My lungs go tight, and I can’t bring myself to meet his gaze. Or even look higher than his collarbone.
“I don’t want to blow this,” he says.
“Me, neither.”
He sets his hand lightly on my waist so I feel his warmth through the cotton. I flash my eyes up for a second and find what I’m afraid of. He’s tender and lonely, and funny and smart. I can’t kiss him unless I mean it, and I can’t mean it while I’m still all twisted and evil inside. But I owe him. I owe him so much.
“Don’t you be dishonest with me,” he says.
“I know,” I whisper.
He doesn’t move. I swear that heat particles are charging the shadow between us, but I don’t know what to do.
“Do you trust me?” he asks.
I nod.
“Then let me try something,” he says, and he touches his lips to mine.
I can’t breathe. I can feel the rest of him just beyond this soft kiss. He’s so warm and strong. If I move at all, I’ll end up in his arms, but I can’t be there. I’m not ready. I’m afraid.
Of me. Of everything.
My heart tumbles wildly around in my chest. I thought I knew how to kiss someone, but I don’t know how to kiss Burnham. I falter back a half step. I can’t look at him, but I hear him breathing.
His voice comes low. “Why?”
“I don’t know,” I say, and swallow hard.
He slides his hand away from my waist. With a spin, I’m on my way back down the hall to my room, where I lock the door with shaky fingers. Something’s wrong with me. Broken. I don’t know what it is. I feel this pull toward Burnham, but I can’t stay here with him. Every instinct tells me to flee, and at the same time, I swear I’m being punished.
*
He’s in the weight room with a trainer when I come out of my bedroom the next morning. I linger out on the porch until they’re finished and I hear the trainer leave, and then I come back in to stand awkwardly by the couch. Burnham’s shirt is damp with sweat, and his glasses catch a glare so I can’t read his expression. He grabs a towel from the back of a chair and drapes it around his neck.
“I hope you slept well,” he says, and aims into the kitchen.
I hardly slept at all. I kept the light on and huddled in my bed, feeling wretched.
“I’m sorry about last night,” I say.
“Are you?” he says. He turns on the faucet to fill a glass with water.
“I think I should leave,” I say.
He drinks long, his throat working, and lowers the glass to look at me. “Okay.”
I didn’t expect him to agree quite so fast. I take a couple of halting steps toward the kitchen, where I can see my cup of cold cocoa still on the counter.
“I might have to borrow some money,” I say.
“I can order another car for you, or better yet, you can take mine.”
“I can’t take your car. Quit being so generous.”
“What are you going to do? Hitchhike? Take my car, Rosie. I have three. You can bring it back someday when you’re done with it. I’ll give you some cash, too. How much do you think you’ll need? Doesn’t matter. I’ll give you a wad.”
I feel really, really horrible.
He scoops handfuls of ice out of the freezer and dumps them into a deep red bowl with a loud clatter. Then he turns on the faucet again so water rushes into the bowl. He turns off the water, carries the bowl to the table near the window, and dunks his bent wrist into the ice water.
“I’ll pay you back for everything some day,” I say. “I promise.”
“I’ll let you try,” he says.
Worse and worse. I have to find some decent way to say goodbye to him.
“Remember the lady knight with the boobs?” I say.
His expression stays flat. “What about her?”
“I think you should still work on your game,” I say. “Go ahead and be a doctor, but don’t give up making your games, too. You were really good at it.”
“Thanks for the inspirational pep talk.” He wipes at his face with his towel. “How’s your latest film going?”
I don’t have one. I don’t even have a camera. “Point taken.”
He shifts his wrist in the bowl and winces briefly. He looks unhappy, and I know it’s my fault.
“I’m really sorry, Burnham,” I say.
He adjusts his glasses and gazes up at me again. “I don’t get it, Rosie. We’re so good together,” he says. “Are you still jonesing for Linus? Is it that?”
“Of course not.”
“So then, what? I’m too klutzy now for you?”
“Don’t say that,” I say.
“There’s got to be some reason,” he says. “I can’t figure it out.”
I shove my hands in my pockets and wish I could dig out of this awkwardness. I speak quietly, trying to put my thoughts together. “Something’s different in me. Sort of scrambled. I’m afraid.”
“Of what? Me?”
“No. I’d never be afraid of you,” I say.
“Then what?”
“I don’t know. I can’t explain it.” I keep feeling the vault in me. This weight. Fear. It’s like my lungs still carry tiny, heavy particles of darkness from the vault, and they’ve attached themselves deep inside me. “Love is for happy people, not me.”
“I’m sorry, but that’s ridiculous,” he says.
It stings. I shrug. “You asked for honesty. That’s how I feel.”
“No, the truth is, you care about me, too,” he says. “You’re just not willing to admit it.”
His ice makes a clunking noise, and I fix my gaze on the bowl again.
“This is exhausting,” I say.
Burnham laughs briefly. “Tell me about it.”
I move a few steps closer until I’m in the sunlight of the window with him. “I need to figure out some stuff. I have to go back to Forgetown to see Berg.”
“And Linus.”
I hesitate, but that’s true. “Yes, if he’s there. But mostly, I need my revenge.”
He shifts his wrist in the ice water again. “I see. You won’t kiss me, but you’d risk your life to kill someone.”
“I never said I’d kill him, per se.”
Burnham looks at me, deadpan. Okay, he knows it’s what I want to do.
I slide my hands in my pockets. “I’m not expecting you to help me.”
“No. But it might make you happier,” he says. He considers me a long moment. “I’ve been thinking about it. If I give you a peg, and if you can stick it in a port of Berg’s personal computer, I can hack it remotely.”
I move a step nearer to him. “That would be totally illegal.”
“Do you care?”
“I don’t care if it’s illegal, but you’re different.”
He pulls his wrist out of the bowl and dries it with the towel. “That’s where you’re wrong, just like you’re wrong about us,” he says. “I want revenge, too.”
23
THEA