jacinda

I once saw a show about an amputee who lost his leg and still feels it. He actually wakes up at night to scratch his leg as if it__ still there, attached to him. They call it a phantom limb.I would be like that. A phantom draki, tormented with the memory of what I once was.

Then again, there__ nothing simple about Will. I think back to what he can do__end earth, resist shading, his immense strength__nd it__ glaringly inaccurate to consider him a human. But then I can__ think of him as a draki either. And this strikes me as sad. Will doesn__ belong anywhere. Not among humans. Not among draki.But he belongs with me. The conviction is still there, as senseless and dangerous as always, seeping into my bones, my heart. A fact I wouldn__ change even if I could.

It's unclear who moves first. We're in each other's arms, lips locked, melded, hotly fused. Our hands drag over each other, reacquainting, remembering, almost as if we're both verifying the other one is real flesh and blood.

Sudden conviction races through me, almost terrifying in its total certainty. I can't give him up. He's the other part of me. He gets what it feels like to be separate from everything and everyone, to reject the path others lay out for you. We're the same. Two sides to the same coin.

When I shoot, the ball bounces hard against the backboard, and flies wildly through the air, knocking the coach in the head. I slap a hand over my mouth. The coach barely catches herself from falling. Several students laugh. She glares at me and readjusts her cap. With a small wave of apology, I head back to the end of the line. Will's there fighting laughter. "Nice," he says. "Glad I'm downcourt of you." I cross my arms and resist smiling, resist letting myself feel good around him. But he makes it hard. I want to smile. I want to like him, to be around him, to know him. "Happy to amuse you.

Before I sought truth. Now I seek justice.