Page 52

“Which still doesn’t make it your fault,” Jesse insisted, desperate to ease the burden he knew Jamie was already carrying.

“Sometimes—” God, another stab of pain in his chest caused him to cut himself off for a moment.

It was fading, yes, but it wasn’t gone completely yet, and every heartbeat seemed to sting.

“Sometimes, people can do things on accident , without ever meaning to hurt someone. That means they made a mistake , sure, but it doesn’t mean it’s their fault. ”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Jamie said. “If my powers are the reason for your pain, that’s my fault. End of story.”

“But it’s not,” Jesse argued. “Sometimes bad things just happen, Jamie, and it doesn’t have to be someone’s fault!

It—the accident,” he recalled. “That accident, from three years ago, it hurt me, and it hurt Austin even more. Nate was in the driver’s seat.

He didn’t do anything wrong; maybe he was a bit distracted because he was talking to me, but he didn’t run any red light or ignored any stop sign or speed limit.

It just—” He cut himself off as he remembered something.

“I mean, I guess he was a little distracted because he wanted me to listen to a song, and was skipping to the right track on the CD-Player. If he’d been paying a little more attention, maybe he would have seen the other guy run the red light, and swerved to avoid him.

But at the end of the day, it just happened.

The guy driving the other car ran his light, and hit us, and we all got hurt.

It was Nate’s car, and he was the one driving it—but that didn’t make it his fault . It just happened.”

“But how can you not hate me for what I’ve done to you?” Jamie demanded, his brown eyes now shimmering with tears. “I’m the reason you’re suffering! How can you be okay with that?!”

“Because you’re also the reason I’m happy!” Jesse declared. “Everybody makes mistakes sometimes, and I don’t want to waste my time blaming people and hating them over things they didn’t have any control over in the first place!”

“But where’s the line, then?” Jamie pressed. “There has to be a line I can’t cross, there has to be a limit to your love!”

“No,” Jesse promised. “My love comes without limits. No matter what you might ever do, no matter how many mistakes you might make, I’ll always love you.”

Jamie swallowed, looking torn between touched and upset. “…I don’t like that,” he said quietly. “I need to know that you’d be willing to leave me, if I ever went too far.”

It hurt a lot, to hear Jamie say that. But realizing that he was serious, Jesse took a moment to think this over.

He had to be careful in how he answered; he wanted to reassure Jamie, but he also knew that he was going through a lot right now.

The constant guilt he felt, the possibility that everything he’d been through was because of some great crime he might have committed that he simply couldn’t remember, and so much more…

It was all very raw for him, and although his sessions with Dr. Alevera had already helped him a lot, he still had a long way to go.

“If you ever did something to hurt me on purpose , I would leave,” Jesse promised. “I don’t ever want to blame someone for something that isn’t their fault, but I’m no doormat, either. If somebody does something wrong on purpose, or if they hurt me by choice , I don’t just let them do it.”

For example, he forgave Nate for the car crash long ago, but Nate’s words in the bar? That was another matter. But he couldn’t really say that out loud, since he hadn’t had the heart to talk to Jamie about those remarks yet .

So he reached out and took Jamie’s hand in his.

“I would leave. But I’m not worried about that at all,” he said. “I have complete faith in you; I know you would never hurt me on purpose.”

Jamie’s breathing was shallow, his expression still a storm of guilt.

“Sometimes bad things happen, Jamie. Sometimes, it’s just… the way life is. And that doesn’t mean someone has to take the blame. Please, don’t do this to yourself.”

Jamie’s fingers curled tightly around Jesse’s, as if he was trying to cling to those words.

“But… why would you be in pain again all of a sudden, if it’s not because of me?

” he pressed. “I hit you with my powers before, and that was what hurt you. At the lake, I didn’t know you were there at first, and then I passed out, and when I woke up, we were both in the water.

If your heart troubles have been back since then, I must have hit you again. ”

“You didn’t,” Jesse promised. “You didn’t hit me, Jamie, I would know if that was the case. And I was in the water because I jumped in to save you.”

Jamie stared blankly, as if he was trying to believe this.

“You did not hit me there,” Jesse repeated and inched closer on the couch, carefully taking Jamie into a comforting hug to underline the next words. “I was in the water because you fell in, and I couldn’t bear the thought of losing you.”

Now, Jamie raised his arms too, wrapping them tightly around Jesse, as if he couldn’t bear the thought, either.

For a few moments, they simply stayed like this.

Jesse felt the tension between them gradually lessen, just like the throbbing in his chest was—until Jamie suddenly pulled back and broke the hug, shifting just enough to look at Jesse again.

“But then… why is the pain back?” he asked quietly.

“W-well…” Jesse hesitated. He didn’t really have it in him to tell Jamie that the shock of cold water could have affected his heart, since he already had a pre-existing condition to worry about.

‘It hurts because I had a heart attack a few months ago after getting hit by a blast of ice, and then I jumped into more ice to save you’ wouldn’t make Jamie feel any better at all.

So, instead, he said…

“I guess it’s just lingering effects.” That wasn’t technically a lie.

“Sometimes, if someone gets badly hurt, they’re more likely to have problems later on, even if it seems like they fully recovered at first. Like if somebody broke their ankle, it might heal perfectly fine, but then their ankle would be a little bit weaker after that, so if they fell on it wrong a year later, it might break again. ”

Jamie frowned, clearly not satisfied with this vague of an explanation. “But… isn’t it hurting a lot more than it should, if it was just ‘lingering effects’ from what happened last Spring?”

Jesse couldn’t really deny that. Still, they needed to move away from the topic of guilt. It wasn’t doing them any good to dwell on it.

“Really, it’s not that big of a deal,” he promised, trying for a smile to lighten the mood.

“Like I said, sometimes things just happen, and nobody has to take the blame for it. It’s not like in comics, where radiation or spider bites give you superpowers or anything like that.

” He let out a light laugh. “I mean, as cool as it would have been to get some of these ice powers for myself, I’m totally fine being your Mary Jane.

Average joes like me gotta be content with what we’ve got. ”

Jamie just stared at him in confusion. “What?”

“…Have we never showed you Spiderman?” Jesse shook his head.

“We’ll have to get on that. It’s just a common trope in superhero stories, that’s all.

Somebody will fall into a vat of toxic waste, or get blasted by a beam of radiation, or be bit by a radioactive spider or just get hit by something, and instead of dying, they get superpowers.

” He shrugged. “It’s all just fun entertainment, not based in any kind of reality or anything.

Though, I don’t know…” He gave Jamie a considering look.

“Since we don’t know how you got your powers, maybe that sort of thing isn’t as far-fetched as I used to think. ”

Jamie frowned as if in deep thought. “What if… what if that’s what happened?”

“What? ”

“What if, when I hit you with my powers, it was like you said?” Jamie asked. “You almost died, but you didn’t. What if I gave you powers? Just a little bit? But since you’re not what I am, it doesn’t work for you, and it’s hurting you instead?”

“ What you are ?” Jesse repeated, a strange feeling coming over him at the words. He forced a laugh, not sure how to respond to that. “What do you mean? Like you’re some kind of alien or something?”

Now it was Jamie’s turn to make a strange face, clearly surprised by his own words. “No, I…” he said, biting his lip in wary confusion. “I didn’t… mean it like that. I just meant, this is normal for me , but it’s not normal for you , so it might react differently in you.”

“…I have to admit, that makes… sense somehow,” Jesse said, pushing a hand through his hair as the full implications of this idea set on him. “But how would we know for sure? My hair and eyes didn’t change, and I haven’t been able to freeze anything at all.”

“Well, yes, but you’re… just you,” Jamie said.

“Perhaps it doesn’t work the same for you.

And instead of actually and truly giving you powers, it’s making you suffer.

” His eyes traveled down to Jesse’s chest. “If this theory is true, and some of my powers are in you… then I should be able to feel them.”

“What?” Jesse stared.

“Just… maybe,” Jamie said. “I mean, I’ve never tried anything like this before, but if it’s my own powers, it should be possible, right? Just like I’m sensing where they are in my body, when I’m locking them in to get into safe form.”

“…Well, um, okay,” Jesse agreed, a sense of seriousness settling over him as he shifted to face Jamie more fully. “What should I do?”

“Just sit there,” Jamie directed, facing him as well and lifting his hand. Gently, he placed it on Jesse’s chest, right over his heart. He closed his eyes and lowered his head, a frown of deep concentration pulling at his brow, like when he’d been trying to change his hair color earlier.