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I burst into tears. “Oh, for the love of…” Chubs shook his head and sighed, but I heard the affection in his voice all the same. “It’s just me, you dumbass.” And without another word, he crossed those last two steps between us and wrapped me up tight in his arms.
“Yeah, well,” Jude huffed, drawing his bony knees up to his chest. “I guess I just don’t see what’s so insulting about being called a girl. The two of you seem to do okay when you’re not biting my head off or acting like I’m five years old.”
“You were the gawky one,” he corrected, “Lee was the reckless one, Zu was the cute one, and I was the wise one.”
“And people like you are the reason we have middle fingers.”
I felt a light touch on my shoulder. I turned, slowly, to see Jude retract his finger back through the metal grate. His bottom lip was white where it was caught between his teeth. But he was looking at me—not with fear or any of its ugly cousins. Just a deep, sincere sadness. He could still stand to look at me. “Roo,” Jude whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
I can’t leave them. Any of them. Not Vida, who was too headstrong for her own good. Not Jude, who couldn’t stand the silence or the dark. Not Chubs, not after everything.
“I’m—I mean…” he began. I felt his hands bunch up the back of Liam’s jacket with the effort to keep me there. “I’m not the same person. I’m not, and I know that. I’m not okay with who I am or what I had to do, but I’m also not okay with us separating again! Don’t do that! Don’t just disappear! If you’re mad at me, then hit me or something—just don’t think that I don’t want to stay with you. I’ll always want to stay with you!” I
cryinggg
“Hey, boo,” she said. “I’m in this now, too, and I got a lot of experience playing assholes like they’re fucking harps. You need backup, I got you. Stop trying to convince yourself that you’re in this alone.”
hell yeah vida
“Sometimes you’re the one speeding along in a panic, doing too much, not paying attention, wrecking things you don’t mean to. And sometimes life just happens to you, and you can’t dodge it. It crashes into you because it wants to see what you’re made of.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Chubs said, “apparently the middle of my sentence interrupted the beginning of yours. Do continue.”
“So a thought crossed my mind,” Liam said suddenly. “That must have been a lonely journey,” Chubs said, flipping the page of his book.
i freaking love them all
We had a total of two guns that Vida and I traded off carrying, since both Chubs and Liam refused on moral grounds.
“Life isn’t fair,” I said. “It’s taken me a while to get that. It’s always going to disappoint you in some way or another. You’ll make plans, and it’ll push you in another direction. You will love people, and they’ll be taken away no matter how hard you fight to keep them. You’ll try for something and won’t get it. You don’t have to find meaning in it; you don’t have to try to change things. You just have to accept the things that are out of your hands and try to take care of yourself. That’s your job.”
