“You’re going back to her? You’re my guard.”
“You have four guards; she has none.” He didn’t stop to talk, walking farther and farther away.
“Ask me,” I yelled after him.
Desperation burned up my throat, acidic, panic heartburn. My hands went to the top of my head as I took deep breaths, trying to wrangle my heartbeat.
I practiced in my head over and over again. I didn’t want to go back. Not to any previous iteration of us. Not the deserter, the enemy, the tormentor, or even the best friend. I wanted us as we almost became last night.
Now, as he kept walking, all I could feel was my beating heart. I eyed the four stone-statues guarding me, my potential audience.
If I told Theo I love him, I could lose him.
But if I don’t, I definitely will.
“I never had a friend before you,” I yelled to his back, voice trembling.
Maybe this is how I spill my guts to Theo, to his back.
It kind of makes sense.
“You were my only friend, but you were so much more. You were my best friend. You were my…” I fiddled with his friendship bracelet. “You know the areas of my soul I was too afraid to walk inside. You read the parts of me I thought I erased. You see my darkness, and you fill it with light.”
Theo kept walking, getting closer and closer to the shadows of the stone hallway.
“You’re my soul mate, Theo!”
Theo paused, then picked up his pace. He was almost out of my sight.
This was it, the moment when I’d have to jump off the cliff.
“I promise I’ll never leave you,” I yelled. “I promise I loved you. Even when you left, when I thought you loved my sister, even when you were cruel.”
He stopped walking.
“I-I promise I love you,” I said. “I promise I can’t stop and will never stop.”
He turned around, peering down the hallway at me with an inscrutable look on his face.
“You promise you love me?” he finally asked.
“Yes,” I said quickly, hope filling my chest. “Yes, I love you.”
He tilted his head, sharp chin catching sunlight. “What if I betray you?”
“Um…” I trailed off, at first thinking I’d misunderstood him.
Theo took long strides, closing the distance he’d just made.
“What if I betray you, Abigail?”
I fiddled with the pastel beads on my wrist, terrified, nearly snapping it. I wasn’t expecting that. I didn’t know how to respond.
“You won’t.”
“What if I did?”
I swallowed, picking at the beads, when his hand shot out, stopping me.