Page 150 of Because I Killed Him
Kiss me.
The moment the thought forms, I understand with startling clarity how weak my self-control really is. If Edmund did kiss me, I wouldn’t be able to resist.
I clench my fists, nails biting into my palms, trying to feel anything except how much I want him. The pressure keeps building until my skin breaks. I feel the sting, then the warmth of blood sliding down my wrist.
I look at it.
And in that single drop of green, the pain in my hand is replaced by a far more painful reminder of where a road like this one ends: a rabid crowd closing in, the wordVulgarhurled like a stone, the brutal hands of Coppers locking around my wrists, and the executioner’s smile flashing before the guillotine blade drops.
Fear crashes through me, and I yank my foot from Edmund’s grasp.
“T-thank you,” I say.
Edmund calls something after me as I leave, but I don’t hear what. I’m too consumed by fear, too devastated by the fact that I’m walking away from the man I want more than anyone I’ve ever wanted.
Back in my suite, I grab my fencing stick for a quick practice, but I feel too sick to swing it. There’s a knot lodged deep in my stomach, vicious and fluttering, like wings beating against a glass jar. I press my fist into the knot and bite back a sound because it hurts. It’s not the soft, dreamy ache Vivian always described, or the dizzy butterflies she swore I’d feel someday. This is wild, violent, and relentless, like being struck again and again from the inside.
I can’t go on like this. I can see exactly where it will end, with me doing something reckless, like taking a Bliss pill to feel anything other than this slow, grinding torture.
Edmund and I can never be together. A relationship with him, one where we could share a real future, is illegal. I not only have to accept this, but also act on it. That means opening myself up to the possibility of meeting someone else.
The next time Charlotte and I go to Jolt & Jive, I put on something fun and flirty. There are plenty of other Greens in the club. Most are talking to other women, but one watches me from the bar, a man from my Cloning Theory class named Andrés. These days, I have only one type, and that type is Edmund, but a year ago, I might’ve gone on a date with Andrés. He has strong features, a broad build, and blond hair slicked neatly back with pomade. I take my glass of wine from our table and head to the bar.
Andrés straightens when I reach him, surprised yet pleased. “Miss Waldsten,” he says. “I must admit, I took you for the sort of woman who waits to be approached.”
“Does it bother you that I’m not?” I ask. Then I use a trick Vivian swears by, the triangle gaze. I lean against the bar and meet Andrés’s stare slowly: one eye, then the other, then his mouth, before lifting my eyes back to his.
“Nothing about you bothers me, Miss Waldsten,” he says. His smile is crooked, taut with excitement and nerves. When he offers to buy me a drink, I say yes. I slide onto the stool beside him, already aware of how Edmund would have pulled it out for me without being asked.
I talk with Andrés late into the night. He’s thoughtful and articulate, striking a careful balance between talking about himself and asking me questions. Sometimes I give him my full attention, pushing Edmund firmly out of my mind, but other times, thoughts of Edmund force their way in. I notice that Andrés answers questions quickly, without hesitation, while Edmund tends to pause, rubbing his eyebrow as he thinks. Andrés’s gaze often drifts as he speaks; Edmund always meets mine directly, as if he’s afraid of missing something.
Each time I catch myself making these comparisons, I realize with growing certainty that this plan is having the opposite effect of what I intended.
Across the room, Charlotte catches my eye and gives me an exaggerated wink, teasing but plainly relieved that I’m finally stepping outside Edmund’s entourage.
I wish it were that simple.
I decide I won’t lead Andrés on. At the next break in our conversation, I thank him for the drink and tell him I need to leave. When he asks for my Bond number, I refuse as gently as I can. Then I leave Jolt & Jive and head back to my suite, guilty for hurting Andrés’s feelings and feeling more hopeless than ever.
I’m tired, lightheaded from wine on an empty stomach, but I still rifle through my vanity until I find the Florence Engine. When the orb blinks to life in my hands, it feels like a last chance, a final lifeline within reach. I press it to my chest and begin training, telling myself that if I can master this, maybe I can master my feelings for Edmund, too.
Day after day, I wrestle with the images projected like a parallel world in my bedroom until I gain enough control to reshape them. One night, after hours of trying to modify a bed of dewy, half-bloomed flowers, my efforts finally pay off: I turn the flowers into a patch of withered, tangled weeds.
And yet, as I sit amid the decay, staring at the brittle stems curling around my feet like shattered trophies, I don’t feel victorious. Not when winning means losing him.
Avoiding Edmund, I soon realize, is a half-assed, coward’s solution to a problem I’ll have to face eventually. We still have two full months until summer break, much too long for me to keep hiding behind a sudden, voracious obsession with reading that only flares up when he tries to talk to me.
So I ease back in, replanting myself in his entourage as if I’ve been swaying here all along, breezy and unbothered. After weeks of training with the Florence Engine, it’s easier now to hide the worst of it.
For a while, I’m sure I’m getting away clean. It’s not until a windy Friday morning, when I arrive early for our Political Theory & Governance lecture and find Edmund already there, that I realize something is off.
He rarely shows up early, but he knows I always do.
For once, he’s sitting completely still, and that in itself is a strange sight. The ceiling lamp above his desk hangs lower than the others, silhouetting him almost too brightly to look at against the dark wood of the balcony behind him.
When he sees me, he rises halfway from his seat, and his shadow stretches long across the floor, swallowing my feet.
“Miss Waldsten, may we talk?”
