There have been too many nights lately where I have hesitated going back to Embry’s, too afraid to face him. Nothing had been right since the beach because we both knew what I had been trying to tell him, and I didn’t want to imagine what it would feel like now that I just gave everyone a death day for all I knew. I didn’t want to face him now that I told him that,Cheap Vibram Five Fingers, in a week, one of us could be in the worst pain of our lives because one of us could so easily just be gone. I didn’t want to face him after that.
But there was only so long I could stay at Sam’s, only so long that I could pace the darkening streets of the piece of land that I swore to protect, the land the Quileute people called their home, no matter the world, no matter the continent, no matter the state. This land was my land. I had grown up in an area like this and I was willing to face my end on this land. It was the least I could do, after living forever.
Eventually, I ran out of sidewalk.
I ran out of thoughts.
I ran out of time.
So I turned around and started for home.
I got there quite a bit of time after sunset, but Embry was sitting in the front room waiting for me patiently, knowing that I would be avoiding this house but he was willing to wait for me anyway. He looked up at me when I opened the front door, his eyes a little bloodshot with the stress pouring through his veins, looking exhausted like he hadn’t slept in days when that was me. He staggered onto his feet, stumbling toward me, throwing his arms around me and holding onto me tightly,beats light blue, desperately. I bit my lip to keep from crying and let him hold me, let me remember what it felt like to belong here with him, like puzzle pieces.
He pulled away after not a lot of time, knowing what had been said and knowing that we weren’t about to take it back, that now wasn’t that day. He just looked at me for a moment.
“You look tired,” he finally observed, and I almost burst out laughing. I bit my cheek to keep myself silent, my eyes glancing away from his.
“I am,” I agreed softly, shaking my head. “What does that matter?”
“You need to sleep,” he told me like there was any chance of me being able to sleep after the day I had just had, after all of the news I had just learned about what awaited us in enough days to count on my fingers.
“I will,” I told him, but I think we both knew that I was lying through my teeth. I tried to smile and I suppose I succeeded. “No need to be a mother hen, Embry, I’ll be fine. I can take care of myself.”
“The thing is,” he admitted, “I don’t think you can.”
I looked at him, surprised, but he wouldn’t look at me. His hands dropped from my arms, and he turned away from me.
“You’re falling apart,” he told me like maybe I didn’t notice. I bit my cheek again. “I can’t stand watching you tear yourself apart day after day. You don’t sleep. You don’t eat. I don’t know how to help you because you seem to be pushing me away more and more with every passing minute, and there is nothing I could say or do to get you to let me back in. There is nothing I can do, Dom, and it kills me that you won’t let me help.”
“I can take care of myself,” I repeated. This time it was his turn to laugh inappropriately.
“Back to square one,Nike Factory Outlet,” he muttered, turning away, and my temper spiked.
“I’m trying as hard as I can,” I said harshly, my voice rising with the level of heat running through my veins. He didn’t turn back to me, and that surely didn’t help. “I’m trying, but there’s nothing I can do. I can’t have this extra stress, Embry. I need you just to let this blow over until the end of the battle.”
“And then what?” he roared, turning back, turning on me. I faltered, momentarily stunned by the heat behind his words. “What happens after the battle, Dom? Oh,Cheap Vibram, yeah, that’s right—you bury my body.”
I got the mental picture—a cold closed casket, a hole in the earth, my everything breaking into a thousand pieces—and I was breathless, unable to answer. My heart stung so painfully that my hand came up and clasped over it, desperate tears escaping out of the corners of my eyes. My free hand impatiently brushed them away. I looked up and stepped up, facing off with Embry.
“You’re not going to die,” I told him softly, forcefully, breaking, but he just scoffed.
“Yeah, right. I know the odds, Dom. Or have you forgotten that we can read each other’s minds?”
“To hell with the odds, Embry. Worry about the actual fight. You’ll make it out.”
“I’m sure I will,” he mocked me, “but what happens after that? Would we just magically return to normal, like this last week never happened?”
And that was why I had been avoiding coming here—because I had been asking myself the same question, and I knew the same answer that he did. I might be his imprint and he might be mine, but we won’t just bounce back without remembering everything. It won’t quite go back to normal immediately because it had been damaged.
And I guess I could let myself take the blame for that, too.
I buried my hands into my hair, ripping and tugging. “What do you want me to do, Embry?”
“I want you to stop lying to yourself.”
“It seems as though you’re mistaken,” I told him, my voice shaking like an earthquake, threatening to bring it all crashing down. “If there is someone I’m lying to, it certainly isn’t me. I’m lying to everyone besides myself nowadays.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” he demanded, but I wouldn’t look at him.
“I’m staying at Sam’s tonight,” I told him before I walked out of everything,UGG Clearance, leaving him behind with a confession of my lies, and a confession that at least I’m not lying to myself, and that’s why it’s tearing me apart.
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