Rebel (Legend, #4)

by Marie Lu

There is nothing to figure out, there is no how or why. Sometimes things just happen.

Real men don’t press flowers into their books. They don’t spill their insecurities to their friends. Daniel certainly doesn’t tell me about all the things that happened to him in his past. Real men suck it up and change the subject until their hearts wither to dust inside them.

She was the flint lighting sparks in my darkness, illuminating a history that I can just barely see.

There are a million pieces of us scattered through my memory, moments tiny and insignificant to everyone else in the world except for me.

Even if I hadn’t known you, I would have stopped and looked back. I would’ve introduced myself.”

remember that I loved you, I want to tell her. I’m in love with you. I love you still.

And everything inside me breaks, every barrier and hesitation and insecurity, it all shatters as the feeling of her with me crashes through my chest. I wonder if it will be like this every time we touch. Everything in me wants to press us against the wall and kiss her harder, to make up for all the time we’ve lost. I want her arms to wrap around my neck, pulling me down to her. I want her so badly. All the questions unanswered between us—What do we do? Where do we go from here?—fade away, leaving only the sharp present, her body warm in my embrace.

I suddenly lean toward her and, when she doesn’t back away, give her a light kiss on her cheek.

“That I love you,” I whisper. “That I’ve been in love with you for years, even when we were separated. Especially then. I’ve lived with you in my life, and I’ve lived without you. No matter what kind of fear I feel in the possibility of us being together, the fear of being away from you is something I don’t think I can bear.” I look down, shy to meet her gaze now.

So fiercely that it frightens me.”

Perhaps we are forever meant to be each other’s catalysts.”

“I’ve looked over my shoulder for a decade,” I whisper, “wondering what it was that was missing in my life. Turns out, all this time, it was you.”

Who are you helping, exactly, by refusing my offer?

“If June were down there, you would tear every street of the Undercity apart to find her. You would keep going until you were dead, and you wouldn’t care what the hell I said.”

Maybe the United States was only ever united for some. Maybe this place has always been a dystopia.

You rarely regret the things you do, but always the things you don’t.

“My home is where you are,”

“Will you marry me?”

Yes. Always. Forever.