Page 47

I definitely was not listening when she asked that, nor do I understand. “Yeah, I understand.”

“I’m really sorry.”

My breathing turns shallow, and my head feels like gravity is pulling me toward the center of the earth. There, I’ll get swallowed whole and die an agonizing death. That’d be better than staying up here, forced to live out the rest of my life in my own personal hell.

My hand trembles against my thigh, and it takes me a few seconds to realize what’s happening. I can’t allow this panic attack to take control of me right now. Not while she’s still here.

If it’s bad enough, like to the point where I feel like I’m having a heart attack, my powers will go wack.

If Arella sees a tree catching fire out of nowhere and the zovernment finds out about it, she’s going to get scrubbed again.

I can’t let that happen. We’ve made some great memories here together, and I want her to remember them.

I close my eyes and take in three long, deep breaths.

In . . . out . . .

In . . . out . . .

In . . . out . . .

Once my breathing is under control and my hands are less shaky, I ask, “Will you go on a walk with me?”

“I’d love to.”

I stand and think about offering her my hand, but I don’t. I won’t be able to handle feeling her skin like that. Not even if it’s for a second.

Arella stands on her own and offers me a sweet smile.

I don’t return it. It’s taking everything in me to keep from falling over right now. I don’t have the capacity to steady my breaths and fake a smile at the same time.

I head toward the dark woods behind our tree with Arella at my side. The black sky hangs above us with a dirty yellow moon and no stars.

My throat feels muggy as I work on sucking in more air. I don’t think my body is getting enough oxygen, because I’m feeling a little light-headed. Or maybe that’s the panic attack? Who knows?

The trail going through the forest is just wide enough for Arella and me to hike side by side.

I shove my hands into my jeans pockets in an attempt to keep them from accidentally touching her.

Then I concentrate on my feet the way my zerapist told me to: “Just focus on putting one foot in front of the other. And if it helps, you can count your steps.”

So I do. One . . . two . . . three . . .

Twenty-one . . . twenty-two . . . twenty-three . . .

Arella taps my arm. “Trey?”

I force my head up. “Hmm?”

“Did you hear me?”

“Sorry. What did you say?”

“I asked if there’s anything you’d like to talk about.”

I shake my head. “Is there anything you’d like to talk about?”

“I think I said everything I wanted to earlier.”

“Okay.” The air goes quiet as I start my unhelpful step-counting activity from the top. One . . . two . . . three . . .

“If there’s nothing you want to talk about, then why’d you ask me to go on a walk with you?”

I think about coming up with a filtered answer, but that would require more effort than I have to give right now.

My words come out slow and somber like I’ve just woken up from a deep sleep.

“I just needed to walk because I felt a panic attack coming. I also wasn’t ready for you to leave yet, and it felt like you were about to.

” This was my way of getting you to stay longer.

“You get panic attacks?”

“Occasionally.” All the time. “Let’s not talk about it though. The point of walking is to help me forget about it.”

“Right.” She ducks under a branch, then says, “Why don’t we talk about what you’re working on with your band?”

I appreciate her attempt at trying to lighten the mood, but... “I’m not really in a good mind-set to talk right now, but if you want to talk, I’m happy to listen.”

“I was talking earlier, but it didn’t seem like you were listening.”

“Sorry.” I swallow some pain, then let out an unsteady breath. “It’s just a little hard for me to concentrate right now.”

She stops in the middle of the trail, making me stop too. “Trey, you’re scaring me.”

“How so?”

“For starters, you’re quiet, and that’s not like you. The Trey I know is always keeping up a conversation with me.”

That version of Trey is the alive one—the one who was living under a false pretense that he could handle the consequences of losing the love of his life again. When I told myself I could handle it, it was because at the time, I was too high off the joy to care.

Turns out, I was wrong. I can’t handle this. I feel like I’ve got a searing-hot knife sticking out of my chest and the weight of the world on my shoulders.

She continues, “When you answer my questions, you say the bare minimum, and you’re doing that thing again where you answer my questions with a version of the truth instead of the full truth.”

I let out a huff as I toss my arms into the air. “What would you rather I do?”

“Be open with me.”

“I’ve been open with you! Look what that got me.

I’ve got a one-way ticket back to nothing.

” I don’t mean to raise my voice at her, but, goddamn, is it hard not to.

“I don’t think you understand that before you came back, I was drowning.

Sometimes, if I was lucky and if I swam hard enough, I was able to come up for a single breath of air—only to get pulled right back down.

I was constantly fighting to live and to feel any sense of belonging or purpose.

“Then one night, you came out of those fucking trees like a goddamn lifesaver. I didn’t have to fight for my next breath anymore. I was exactly where I needed to be, doing exactly what I needed to be doing.

“For a whole week after that, I felt like I was standing in the shallow end. I was able to breathe without fighting for air, but still headed toward the depths. Then you showed up a second time and—” I snap my fingers. “Just like that, I’m saved again.”

I shove my hands through my messy hair, shaking my head at myself.

“I’m quiet because I’m scared, okay? I’m scared of what it’s gonna be like to fall back into the deep end.

This time, it’ll be like my feet are tied to bricks.

I’m afraid of returning to the bad habits I’ve worked so hard to fight off.

I’m afraid of the person I’ll become when I finally lose that battle.

But mostly, I’m fucking terrified of not submitting to the numbing remedies because it means suffering through the raw misery of every day I have to live without you. ”

Tears glisten in her eyes. “Oh, Trey . . .”

“No.” I turn my head away and aim my gaze at a tree. “Don’t look at me like that. I don’t want pity.”

“I never meant to hurt you.”

“I know.” I soften my stance, then sigh and lower my voice.

“I’m sorry for raising my voice at you. I’m not mad at you; I’m mad at myself.

Deep down, I always knew you’d leave and that once you did, it would destroy me.

I made the choice to continue seeing you anyway, and that choice came with consequences I’m gonna have to live with. ”

My breathing sounds like I’m suffocating. The anxiety is consuming me again. I need it to stop, so I don’t think about it as I seize Arella’s hand and cup it against my cheek. She allows me to hold it there while I close my eyes and work on some deep breaths.

It takes me a minute to steady my heart rate and reopen my eyes. A pair of beautiful brown ones stare back at me.

“Did that help?” she asks.

“It always does.”

For a moment, I imagine throwing her over my shoulder and taking her home with me.

I’ll convince her that she belongs with me, and after a while, she’ll believe it.

She’ll fall madly in love with me like I am with her.

She’ll want to have my kids, we’ll support each other in our careers, and then we’ll live happily ever after.

I let out a long sigh as I mourn the loss of the life I want so badly. Maybe in an alternate universe somewhere, another version of me has all that. Sadly, I’m stuck here, where Arella can’t be mine and I can’t do anything about it.

I gesture toward the trail we’re stopped on. “Let’s keep walking.”

For a while, we trudge through the woods with only the sounds of our breaths and the crickets wailing in the tall grass.

I stare at my feet and count my steps again because it gives my mind something to focus on other than the idea of masking this ache with the first illegal substance I can get my hands on.

One . . . two . . . three . . .

Arella keeps a steady pace next to me. “Do you regret it?”

“Regret what?”

“Any of it. Our time together.”

“No,” I say without missing a beat. “If given the choice, I’d do it all over again, even knowing what I know now.”

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t deserve a single moment of it, but you still gave me nine weeks of pure joy, which is better than none at all.

I’m grateful for what I got.” Even if it means falling into a hole that’s darker than before.

At least I got to experience what it’s like to live in the light with her again.

How long is it going to take for me to get over this woman? Is it even possible to get over losing a soul mate—again? Honestly, this whole soul-mate thing is bullshit. Why tie two people together and not allow them to be together? What’s the fucking point?

“Do you regret it?” I ask.

She doesn’t hesitate. “No. I feel guilty sometimes, but it’s not enough guilt to wish we never happened.

The only reason I came here in the first place was because I wanted to sort through my thoughts about how Caleb was refusing to be intimate with me.

If he actually paid attention to me, I don’t think you and I would have gotten that close.

We probably wouldn’t have had this time together at all. ”

“Did you tell him about us?”

“No.”

“Do you plan to?”

“No. What happened at our tree stays at our tree.”