Chapter 18: Guttering Flames

My mind went blank. I shot forward.

Wind tried to tear the Plastic away from Lena as I neared, but it caught on her body and her wings and only wrapped itself tighter over her face. Her flames singed it, discolored it, kicked up clouds of smoke, but didn’t burn through. It filled her wide-open mouth, pushed inside.

I could touch it now and I did, clawing and scrabbling and shouting her name. It didn’t absorb. It didn’t let go.

I dropped my phone to drag the Plastic off her with both hands.

Of course, without my phone and the Third Eye app, I saw Lena’s face’s, not the Plastic covering it.

She stared at me and tumbled backwards onto the floor.

I sank to my knees next to her and stared back.

She sucked down a breath. I watched her cheeks bulge and sag. Watched her chest rise and fall. Watched her wide-eyed stare narrow as she decided what to do with my reaction.

She laughed. Then she tossed her hair and cackled. Between laughs and gasps of breath, she squeezed out, “Oh my God, the look on your face!”

I kept staring.

She blinked tears from her eyes and tried to stifle her laughter. She almost managed, then she looked at me again and started to giggle. She reached out and caught my arms. Her hands felt so warm. “C’mere, dummy.”

I stood up.

I looked down at her as she shook with laughter because –

Because I’d let myself believe all the weird bullshit around Third Eye could actually hurt her?

Because I’d given a shit about her.

Yeah. What a joke.

Her giggle became a snort. Her snort became a sniffle. “Cam?”

“This is stupid.” I turned, ripped my phone from the floor, and stalked to the bedroom.

I kicked off my pajama pants right there, rather than taking my clothes to the bathroom to dress. If she followed me and peeked, so what? Neither of us were gonna see anything we hadn’t seen before. Nothing she hadn’t gotten bored of, or had never wanted to have to see but had endured for the sake of a roof over her head.

The pants caught on my boots. My cheeks burned as I pulled them off and tried again. If I’d looked pissed off, now I just looked pathetic. I swallowed bile.

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If Lena had followed, she didn’t seize this new chance to mock me.

I yanked my underwear on, then my corduroys, then my parka. I slipped my boots back on.

I whirled.

Lena stood in the doorway of the bedroom. She wasn’t laughing at me now. She’d bitten her lip, and her eyes were huge. She still had her pajamas on and she looked so tiny in them.

“Bad joke?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “You’re hilarious.”

“Yeah, I know, but –”

I pushed past her, and for once, she didn’t seem to have anything to say.

Most of the time, I put up with her disaster gremlin persona. Put up with? Who was I trying to kid? Trick, question, it was me. Most of the time, I loved it. I laughed with her and at her, even when she laughed at me.

When she’d reamed me out over the identity theft a few years ago, it had actually hurt, but I’d swallowed that and forced myself to laugh along with the constant ribbing.

This time I couldn’t.

Why? Because we’d still been dating then? Because I wished we still were? I didn’t want to believe that. It scared me to think I was just trying to kid myself again, but this time when it mattered. So. In the spirit of internet arguments everywhere, I said to hell with the scientific method and found myself an answer that fit my biases:

Because back then, she’d been laughing that I cared about myself.

If me caring about her was a joke? Not even romantically, just platonically, just roommately, caring that I might have hurt her, that was a joke to her?

Then maybe I needed to learn how to stop.

She caught me opening the front door. “Cameron, wait!”

The breeze had died back down, but the cold bit at my face. I could only imagine what it did to Lena in her PJs.

She tugged on my arm. “I’m sorry, all right? I didn’t think you’d really believe Third Eye could hurt me, okay? Because that’s really stupid?”

I gave her a look.

It must have been an unpleasant one, because she flinched. She mumbled, “I didn’t mean to call you stupid.”

“You never mean to,” I said.

The cold air had turned her face as red as her curls. The outlines of freckles marked her cheeks. She looked so adorable. She looked so hurt.

I wanted to fold her in my arms and keep her warm. I wanted to sit her down and ask if I’d taken advantage of her back then, ask what she wanted us to be now.

I’d have settled for closing the door and sharing a mutual laugh about what assholes we both were.

None of those things happened.

Lena searched my face. Her hands tightened on my arm.

Then she set her jaw and let me go. Pushed me away.

I let her.

“Fine,” she spat. “If you can’t take a joke or an apology, then go sulk.”

I stepped outside and she shut the door behind me. I didn’t hear her lock it and anyway, my keys were in the pocket of my parka. I still had the chance to turn back.

I stood there for a minute.

The air felt colder, even though the sun had risen. Someone had left their trash on the balcony, hopefully to take down later. It smelled like grease and rotting pizza. What a waste. The paint on our apartment door had started to peel, showing the gray dead wood underneath.

My eyes pounded with a headache and my heart was a fist in my chest. My fingers felt numb and my ears burned cold.

My arms and legs, though? They’d gotten warmed up by my two jogs on the stairs.

Hell with it.

I left my keys in my pocket and took out my phone instead.

I had grinding to do.