alex-sheathes

I told you," he whispers back. I can feel his breath just tickling the space behind my ear, making my hair prick up on my neck. "I like you.""You don't know me," I say quickly."I want to, though.

Everything has taken on a strange, distant quality - the sounds of running and shouting outside get warped and weird like they're being filtered through water, and Alex looks miles away. I start to think I might be dreaming, or about to pass

Lena Ella Haloway Tiddle." I pronounce her full name, very slowly, partly because I need to reassure myself of her existence__ena, my friend, the worried one, the one who always pleaded for safety first, who now makes secret appointments to meet with boys. "You have some explaining to do.""Hana, you remember Alex," Lena says weakly, as though that__he fact of my remembering him__xplains any

I thought you were dead,_ I say. __t almost killed me.___id it?_ His voice is neutral. __ou made a pretty fast recovery.___o. You don__ understand._ My throat is tight; I feel as though I__ being strangled. __ couldn__ keep hoping, and then waking up every day and finding out it wasn__ true, and you were still gone. I__ wasn__ strong enough.__e is quiet for a second. It__ too dark to see his expression: He is standing in shadow again, but I can sense that he is staring at me.Finally he says, __hen they took me to the Crypts, I thought they were going to kill me. They didn__ even bother. They just left me to die. They threw me in a cell and locked the door.___lex._ The strangled feeling has moved from my throat to my chest, and without realizing it, I have begun to cry. I move toward him. I want to run my hands through his hair and kiss his forehead and each of his eyelids and take away the memory of what he has seen. But he steps backward, out of reach.__ didn__ die. I don__ know how. I should have. I__ lost plenty of blood. They were just as surprised as I was. After that it became a kind of game__o see how much I could stand. To see how much they could do to me before I_____e breaks off abruptly. I can__ hear any more; don__ want to know, don__ want it to be true, can__ stand to think of what they did to him there. I take another step forward and reach for his chest and shoulders in the dark. This time, he doesn__ push me away. But he doesn__ embrace me either. He stands there, cold, still, like a statue.__lex._ I repeat his name like a prayer, like a magic spell that will make everything okay again. I run my hands up his chest and to his chin. ____ so sorry. I__ so, so sorry.__uddenly he jerks backward, simultaneously finding my wrists and pulling them down to my sides. __here were days I would rather they have killed me._ He doesn__ drop my wrists; he squeezes them tightly, pinning my arms, keeping me immobilized. His voice is low, urgent, and so full of anger it pains me even more than his grip. __here were days I asked for it__rayed for it when I went to sleep. The belief that I would see you again, that I could find you__he hope for it__as the only thing that kept me going._ He releases me and takes another step backward. __o no. I don__ understand.

We'll walk together holding hands, and kiss in broad daylight, and love each other as much as we want to, and no one will ever try to keep up apart.

Alex, please.__e balls his fists. __top saying my name. You don__ know me anymore.___ do know you._ I__ still crying, swallowing back spasms in my throat, struggling to breathe. This is a nightmare and I will wake up. This is a monster-story, and he has come back to me a terror-creation, patched together, broken and hateful, and I will wake up and he will be here, and whole, and mine again. I find his hands, lace my fingers through his even as he tries to pull away. __t__ me, Alex. Lena. Your Lena. Remember? Remember 37 Brooks, and the blanket we used to keep in the backyard____on__,_ he says. His voice breaks on the word.__nd I always beat you in Scrabble,_ I say. I have to keep talking, and keep him here, and make him remember. __ecause you always let me win. And remember how we had a picnic one time, and the only thing we could find from the store was canned spaghetti and some green beans? And you said to mix them____on__.___nd we did, and it wasn__ bad. We ate the whole stupid can, we were so hungry. And when it started to get dark you pointed to the sky, and told me there was a star for every thing you loved about me._ I__ gasping, feeling as though I am about to drown; I__ reaching for him blindly, grabbing at his collar.__top._ He grabs my shoulders. His face is an inch from mine but unrecognizable: a gross, contorted mask. __ust stop. No more. It__ done, okay? That__ all done now.___lex, please____top!_ His voice rings out sharply, hard as a slap. He releases me and I stumble backward. __lex is dead, do you hear me? All of that__hat we felt, what it meant__hat__ done now, okay? Buried. Blown away.___lex!__e has started to turn away; now he whirls around. The moon lights him stark white and furious, a camera image, two-dimensional, gripped by the flash. __ don__ love you, Lena. Do you hear me? I never loved you.__he air goes. Everything goes. __ don__ believe you._ I__ crying so hard, I can hardly speak.He takes one step toward me. And now I don__ recognize him at all. He has transformed entirely, turned into a stranger. __t was a lie. Okay? It was all a lie. Craziness, like they always said. Just forget about it. Forget it ever happened.___lease._ I don__ know how I stay on my feet, why I don__ shatter into dust right there, why my heart keeps beating when I want it so badly to stop. __lease don__ do this, Alex.___top saying my name.

I want to apologize to you,_ she says calmly.__h yeah? For what?_ I don__ have time for this. We don__ have time for this. I push away thoughts of what will happen to Hana even if I manage to escape. She__l be here, in the house . . .My stomach is clenching and unclenching. I__ worried the bread will come straight back up. I have to stay focused. What happens to Hana isn__ my concern, and it isn__ my fault, either.__or telling the regulators about 37 Brooks,_ she says. __or telling them about you and Alex.__ust like that, my brain powers down. __hat?"__ told them._ She lets out a tiny exhalation, as though saying the words has given her relief. ____ sorry. I was jealous.__ can__ speak. I__ swimming through a fog. __ealous?_ I manage to spit out.____ wanted what you had with Alex. I was confused. I didn__ understand what I was doing._ She shakes her head again.I have a swinging, seasick feeling. It doesn__ make any sense. Hana__olden girl Hana, my best friend, fearless and reckless. I trusted her. I loved her. __ou were my best friend.___ know._ Again she looks troubled, as though trying to recall the meaning of the words.__ou had everything._ I can__ stop my voice from rising. The anger is vibrating, ripping through me like a live current. __erfect life. Perfect grades. Everything._ I gesture to the spotless kitchen, to the sunshine pouring over the marble counters like drizzled butter. __ had nothing. He was my one thing. My only__ The sickness surges up and I take a step forward, clenching my fists, blind with rage. __hy couldn__ you let me have it? Why did you have to take it? Why did you always take everything?

Everywhere he touches is fire. My whole body is burning up, the two of us becoming twin points of the same bright white flame.

Is it true?_ I ask him.__s what true?_ His eyes are the color of honey. These are the eyes I remember from my dreams.__hat you still love me,_ I say, breathless. __ need to know.__lex nods. He reaches out and touches my face__arely skimming my cheekbone and brushing away a bit of my hair. __t__ true.___ut . . . I__e changed,_ I say. __nd you__e changed.___hat__ true too,_ he says quietly. I look at the scar on his face, stretching from his left eye to his jawline, and something hitches in my chest.__o what now?_ I ask him. The light is too bright; the day feels as though it__ merging into dream.__o you love me?_ Alex asks. And I could cry; I could press my face into his chest and breathe in, and pretend that nothing has changed, that everything will be perfect and whole and healed again.But I can__. I know I can__.__ never stopped._ I look away from him. I look at Grace, and the high grass littered with the wounded and the dead. I think of Julian, and his clear blue eyes, his patience and goodness. I think of all the fighting we__e done, and all the fighting we have yet to do. I take a deep breath. __ut it__ more complicated than that.__lex reaches out and places his hands on my shoulders. ____ not going to run away again,_ he says.__ don__ want you to,_ I tell him.His fingers find my cheek, and I rest for a second against his palm, letting the pain of the past few months flow out of me, letting him turn my head toward his. Then he bends down and kisses me: light and perfect, his lips just barely meeting mine, a kiss that promises renewal.