Page 46 of Roses & Ruin

They’ve both been lying to me.

I think about all my interactions with Hayden. There’s a huge relief to know I hadn’t imagined it, the truck on the bridge, the glimpses of him across campus. Now it makes sense why he fled every time, why he pulled back every time I got too close. And what had he said when he first brought me to that church?

Don’t you think that there has been at least one out there who has loved another so desperately, so ruinously, so absolutely, that their love could resurrect countries? Continents?

The memory unbottles me. The grief in his voice, the tight curl of his fists, the shake in his breath. Does he really love me that much? It doesn’t feel real. Hayden, the most beautiful indigo-eyed, sharp-jawed boy I’ve ever seen—that anyone has ever seen. A vampire, swifter than sound, deadlier than any creature known to man or nature…He loves me, weird little Rose, that much?

Then why wouldn’t he even kiss you?

The stab of hurt curls into anger. How many times did he lie to me? Sneer at how stupid I sounded, accusing him of being in Irvine last year? How many times did he make me cry? Allow me to feel crazy? And now he’s abandoned me. Told me he’ll be my shadow forever, just behind me, promising me that anytime I turn around, he’ll vanish. Promising I can never see him again.

Screw Hayden.

Why won’t he let us love each other?

I lean forward, bury my face in my hands.

The blur of trees out the window has now given way to a more urban landscape. The fog of exhaust and smog mingles with the mist of rain. We’re passing larger and larger buildings until they’re scraping the sky. Small roads are now a tangle of giant highways crowded with cars and buses. A voice crackles over the intercom.

“We are about to pull into Boston’s North Station. Please begin collecting your baggage and ready yourself for our arrival.”

I drum nervously on my thighs, feeling like a stripped, sparking wire. I haven’t slept. I’ve never been to a big city by myself.

Vampires are real.

Magic is real.

Curses are real.

I’m not the first Rose.

What the hell is anyone supposed to do with all that information?

My pocket vibrates. I scramble for my phone like an idiot before remembering Hayden and I have never exchanged numbers.

It’s Julian.

Julian:

Question. If I were to cook a gourmet meal for you, would you come over?

I can make (wait for it) jam and toast OR beans and toast

I’ll hold for applause. How’s Friday looking for you?

I shove my phone back into my jeans, groaning. I feel awful, but after all the revelations of the past twenty-four hours, Julian seems like a stranger now. I can’t possibly think of a response. I’ll deal with him later.

Boston’s a symphony of new sounds, the air frigid and smelling of exhaust. I’m surrounded by the braying honks of cars, the huge public buses lurching and stopping in traffic, screeching and chuffing like terrible beasts.

An ad at a bus stop catches my eye. A picture of an art piece, taller than me, of jerky lines weeping down the page, two hands, the top of a head, holding a square of white.

Lost in My Life (Chiral Lines 3) now showing at the Institute of Contemporary Art. Only 1.5 miles away.

Lost in my life? I can’t think of anything more fitting. I find that I’m already heading in the direction the arrow is pointing, the way to the art museum. Seems like fate. I shiver at the thought, pulling my scarf up and hunching into the slicing cold of the wind.

Is it my fate to always die before I’m nineteen? I suck in a lungful of icy air. It tastes like salt, and when I turn a corner, I see why. Sailboats sway in the harbor, the ocean waves slapping against the seawalls. When the mist starts to bite, I realize it’s begun to sleet.

Fall is going by so quickly.