Page 8 of Irreverent (The Marked Saga #7)
The sound of my obscene alarm clock blaring from my phone’s speaker wrenched me out of my sleep like a bucket of ice water to the face. With my nerves already frazzled and a knot of uncertainty tied to my chest, I banged my index finger against my phone’s screen until I managed to shut the alarm off and then focused in on the time:
6:00 A.M.
I groaned.
After leaving Trace’s last night and then updating Gabriel on everything that happened, including Morgan’s non-vision-message-thing, I’d only managed to make it into bed at around four o’clock in the morning. A decision I was deeply regretting now since that had given me a grand total of two measly hours of sleep.
Stumbling out of bed, I grabbed a clean uniform from my closet and then dragged my ass over to the shower. I’d already mentioned to Gabriel last night that I wanted to do a session first thing in the morning, so as tired as I was, I knew I needed to move quickly if I was going to do that and make it to school on time.
Not that school or punctuality mattered all that much in the face of everything going on right now. But it was my senior year, after all, and a part of me sort of, maybe wanted to possibly, hopefully do something normal like graduate on time with my friends this year.
After taking the world’s fastest shower, I ambled my way downstairs to the kitchen where Gabriel was already seated at the table with the shades drawn, flipping through the morning paper.
Apparently, I’d forgotten to cancel my uncle’s subscription after he passed away. Oddly enough, there was something comforting about seeing Gabriel there with that stupid newspaper in his hands.
“Morning,”
I said as I hurried to the fridge and pulled out a carton of milk.
“Good morning,”
he answered, his already narrowed eyes scrutinizing me as I poured myself a glass of milk. “You look tired today.”
“That’s because I am tired,”
I answered simply.
“And pale.”
I held up the glass of milk to him. “Because I haven’t had my breakfast yet,”
I said and then knocked the entire glass back. The truth was, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had an actual full course meal, but I wasn’t about to tell him that. He was already in a permanent state of riding me with his never-ending worry. I wasn’t about to give him more fuel.
I set the glass down in the sink and then made my way over to him. “Have you fed yet?”
I asked instead, inspecting him for any signs of rabid starvation or bloodlust. You know, anything that would make this idea even more dangerous than it already was.
“Twice,”
he answered, watching me as I pulled out the chair beside him and then plopped myself onto it. I wasn’t sure what he was seeing, but his face was already puckered with a frown. “It might be a good idea to take some time in between these sessions to give your body a chance to—”
“Nope. That’s not happening,”
I cut in as I impatiently rolled up the sleeve of my school dress shirt, ready to get this thing over and done with. Of course, Gabriel would want to take the slow and cautious route with this. He was a safety squirrel, through and through. I, on the other hand, was not.
“You didn’t even let me finish,”
he scolded.
“Because I already know what you’re going to say. You’re worried—I get that. It’s what you do, but we don’t have any more time to waste, Gabriel. Nikki’s almost ready to pop, the Council’s breathing down my neck like a fire-breathing dragon, and Dominic is just laying in my basement like a useless, sun-dried piece of fruit.”
He cocked his eyebrow. “A sun-dried piece of fruit?”
“Yes. It’s basically fruit that has shriveled up and died. They’re pointless and sad.”
“Plenty of people enjoy sun-dried fruit,”
he pointed out, missing my point altogether.
“Well, I prefer mine alive and vibrant and with a beating heart!”
Wait. Okay, that entire analogy had taken a strange turn into nonsense territory. “Whatever. You know what I mean,” I said and waved him off. “The more often we do this, the faster we can create a bond and the faster I can start working with Dominic. Come on, Gabriel. You already know all of this. It was decided last night.”
“Yes, but last night you had color in your face,”
he retorted, unmoved by my speech.
“Okay, so that just means I’m going to need a little more Rev blood to level me off afterwards. It’s no big deal. I’ve gone through this before with Dominic when he had to match and then double Engel’s feedings. I survived then, I’ll survive now,”
I said and then extended my wrist to him, my brows lifted expectantly.
He scrubbed his jaw with his hand and then let out a depleted breath. He knew he wasn’t going to win this battle. Not when so much was on the line. Not when someone I loved was on the line.
“Besides, you promised me,”
I reminded, unabashed.
Tensing his jaw, he wrapped his fingers around my forearm and then drew my wrist to his mouth before pausing. “For the record, I think this is a horrible idea.”
“Duly noted,”
I answered and then sat back and let him do his magic.
***
The entire bloodsharing session had taken less than fifteen minutes, which was a new record for us. Even though we’d only bloodshared a handful of times, Gabriel definitely seemed to be adapting to my blood fairly well, which consequently made it a little bit easier for him to control himself when it came time to stop. Granted, the two servings of donor blood he had before our session probably helped, but I wasn’t letting that get my spirits down.
After wrapping things up with Gabriel and making sure to take a little extra for myself at the end, I jumped into my car and headed for school. Unfortunately for Gabriel, he was going to be stuck waiting at the Blackburn Estate for me all day since it was daylight out. I wasn’t sure what he was going to do to pass the time, but he didn’t seem to be all that bothered by it and so I didn’t waste any time feeling bad about it either.
Twenty minutes later, I parked my car in the student parking lot with plenty of time to spare. As per usual, my eyes scanned the lot in search of Trace’s Mustang and was immediately worried when I came up empty.
He probably just parked on the other side of the building, I told myself, though it did nothing to ease my ratcheting anxiety. Even though I felt I had done the right thing by telling him the truth last night, it didn’t stop that annoying little voice in the back of my head from being terrified that I’d made the biggest mistake of my life.
At this point, I wasn’t sure how bad Trace’s migraines were actually getting since he had been fairly vague and standoffish about it last night, but I knew that seeing him at school would be a good sign that maybe things weren’t as bad as everyone thought they would be. At least that was what I kept telling myself.
Locking up my car, I threw my schoolbag over my shoulder and rushed into the side doors heading straight for my locker, which happened to be right next to Trace’s. To my utter relief, Trace was there, looking like the Adonis he was as he stood in front of our lockers, deep in conversation with Ben.
I slowed my stride as Ben looked up and spotted me, giving me a quick nod to let me know that all was well on the Trace front and that it was safe to approach. I couldn’t help but hope that maybe our open and honest conversation last night had given him some actual peace of mind. As bleak as some of the topics had been, we ended the night on a positive note, more or less, and I truly felt that I had taken some great strides in proving that I could be honest with him.
That he could trust me.
“Hey, Jem, how’s it going?”
greeted Ben as I cautiously approached the two of them. His voice was far too chipper for this early in the morning, but I liked him too much to hold that against him.
I smiled back at him just as Trace turned around and blessed me with a smile of his own, albeit a small one.
“It’s going,”
I answered, though my eyes never veered from Trace as I catalogued every one of his features; the curvature of his bow-shaped lips, his uneasy posture, the way he tensed his jaw when he looked down at me. If I didn’t know any better, it almost seemed as though he were uncomfortable with my presence just then.
Shit. Maybe we hadn’t made as many strides as I thought we’d had. At least he’s still standing in one piece, I told myself, trying to stay positive. Either way, I knew I needed to check in with him.
“Hey, Ben? Can you give us a minute?”
I asked, meeting his gaze.
“No problem,”
he answered jovially and then grinned back at me. “But only if you promise to convince this guy to come to the game with me this weekend.”
I rolled my eyes at him and bit back a smile. “I’ll do my best.”
“Then I’ll catch you two later,”
he said with a dip of his head and then took off down the hallway, going the opposite way of where I’d come from.
I watched him for a moment before turning my attention back to Trace who was digging out his binder and textbook from his locker. My stomach tightened as I tried to think of the right thing to say to him—the thing that would make the sudden awkwardness between us disappear and make everything better again. Because while I clearly hadn’t broken his mind with the truth last night, his heart was another story altogether.
“I feel like maybe I need to apologize to you for last night,”
I said, staring down at my feet as though I were talking to them. “For everything really.”
“What for?”
he asked, his tone flat.
I looked up at him and noted his hands had stilled, but he hadn’t yet turned around to face me.
“You told me the truth,”
he went on without meeting my eyes. “That’s more than I can say for most of my friends right now.”
“But you’re hurting.”
“Yeah,”
he answered simply, not even bothering to deny it.
The admission made me feel a hundred times worse.
“I never meant to hurt you, Trace. Not yesterday and not ever,”
I said softly and took a small step toward him. I felt like a broken record constantly apologizing for inflicting pain on him, but I couldn’t stop myself. “No matter what you think of me, you have to know that.” I wanted to reach out and touch him, to let our soulmate bond sing between us and remind us that everything was going to be okay, but I knew I didn’t have that right. Not anymore.
“I do.”
He shut his locker and then turned to face me. There was so much pain and grief in his eyes that it speared my heart just to face it. To face the damage I’d done to him.
“But you need more time,”
I realized, the air already thinning from the loss.
His dimples blinked in and out of life as he ran his fingers through his hair. “I know you never set out to fall in love with both of us, and I know you told me the truth because I asked for it, but it doesn’t mean that it’s not breaking my fucking heart to know that my soulmate is also in love with somebody else.”
My stomach hollowed, as though he’d fired a buckshot right through my gut. I was officially the shittiest person on the planet. Jemma Blackburn, Daughter of Hades, Shitty Bitch Extraordinaire.
“Tell me what to do to make this better,”
I pleaded, tears prickling the corners of my eyes.
He shook his head, as though it were bleak and hopeless. “There’s nothing you can do, Jemma. I just need some time to make peace with this.”
A determined tear finally broke free.
I wasn’t sure what to say to that or what he even meant by that, but I didn’t think it was anything good. Was he saying he needed time to make peace with the fact that we were over, and he wanted nothing more to do with me? That he needed time to mourn the loss of the life he imagined we were going to have together?
No matter which way I spun it, it seemed hopeless for us.
I had grieved that kind of loss many times over, given up on the dreams I had for my future, for myself, and I knew how hard it was to come to terms with the fact that your life wasn’t going to turn out the way you’d envisioned it. But somewhere along the way, I’d learned that it didn’t need to mean the end. That sometimes, it was just the start of something new. But could Trace ever be able to see it that way?
And what if he couldn’t? What then?
A part of me wanted to throw myself at him and beg him not to leave me. To plead for his forgiveness—maybe even demand it from him. But, of course, I wouldn’t do that. I was going to have to eat crow and deal with the consequences of my divided heart. After all, I was in this mess of pain because of myself, and only myself.
If he needed time to process his feelings, then I would give him that as gracefully as I could manage and hope that it would be enough to repair the damage I’d done.
The bell rang out around us as I wiped away my straggling tear and then met those magnificently torn eyes of his. For a moment, it seemed as though he wanted to say something to me, as though he had changed his mind and decided to forgive me after all. But I knew it was only my own desperate need for absolution being reflected back to me.
That I was merely seeing what I wanted to see.
“Whatever you feel for me right now; however much you hate me or are disappointed in me—it pales in comparison to what I already feel about myself,”
I confessed, my chin quivering as I fought back an endless sob that ached to break free from deep in my chest. “Just know that I never stopped loving you. Not for a single second of a single day,” I said and then walked away, hurrying down the hall as quickly as my feet could take me so that he wouldn’t see me cry.