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“I’m sorry.” His Adam’s apple moved. “I forget to look at other things, when you’re around.”
“Okay.” His smile could have powered the entire city. “Okay.” “Okay,” I repeated, and we were both laughing silently in each other’s mouths, and then kissing, and I thought that maybe, if perfect moments existed, this could be one of them.
“Do you think that maybe there’s another version of us, somewhere in another timeline? Where we’re not just a messed-up lump of scar tissue, and we’re whole enough to be capable of loving others the way they want to be loved?”
Were all dogs this shamelessly happy? Science should study their blood. Come up with good drugs.
“You’re enough, Rue. And if you aren’t…I just don’t mind.”
“I said it before, but I do like you. You’re funny, even though you like to pretend you’re not. You’re loyal—to the wrong people, sometimes, but that’s still a quality that I deeply appreciate, even more so after what happened ten years ago. You have a strong sense of what is wrong and what is right. You’re deliberate, and you’d rather shut up than lie—even to yourself.” He began plating the food. In his perfect profile, I saw a twitch of a smile. “And as we’ve already agreed upon, you’re a fantastic lay who smells amazing.”
I thought I’d be rid of you by now. I thought I’d sweat you out. But it’s like you’ve stolen a little piece of me. And I’m afraid that when this is over, I’ll go back to my life, and my shape will have changed—just a little, but enough that I’ll no longer fit into my lonely, angular hole.
“Rue. My sad, beautiful fortress girl.”
“Isn’t this the most tragic story you’ve ever heard?”
I’d rather not surround myself with someone who’ll hurt me just to get ahead, and that’s mine.” Her eyes hardened. “Then there will be no one left to surround yourself with, Rue.” I shrugged and walked out, thinking that she was wrong. Thinking about Eli.
“I used to think that endings could be happy, or sad. That stories could be happy, or sad. That people could be happy, or sad. And I always figured that my ending, my story, me, would always fall in the latter.”
“And I want you to know, we don’t have to be. Because tragedies have sad endings, and we don’t have to have one. We don’t even have to be over.”
