I love her more than anyone, and it’s killing me.
He sits next to
me. “I lost everything and everyone. I haven’t even been able to contact my family. They think I’m dead, Annie. My mom, I can’t even imagine . . .” His voice breaks, and I reach out for his hand. It’s not, I note with no small amount of relief, the hand from my visions. “Fia’s the reason I’m here, and I can’t believe that there isn’t a purpose behind it all. Not with what I’ve seen, not with what you all can do. There has to be a reason we met. A reason that makes everything worthwhile.”
I’m the reason they met. Not fate. I created this future with my stupid reaction to my visions. But I don’t think Adam would see it that way. Clinical, brilliantly medical-minded Adam believes in fate. A fate with Fia.
“We change the future with every choice we make,” I say softly. I don’t know whether I mean it to encourage or discourage the torch he carries for my sister.
Something thuds outside the bathroom. I leave the shower running but climb out, curious. The stone tiles are cold under my feet as I pad across them and put my ear against the door.
“If you so much as look in her direction again, I’ll kill you.” Cole. He insisted on coming with me to North Carolina on the Mae trip, so Rafael sent him and Nathan. It was the most awkward car trip in the history of car trips: Nathan with his terrible choice in music, Cole silent and fuming.
Nathan answers. “Relax! I was just in here for—”
“I’ve seen you watching her when you think no one notices. One more time—” Something thuds against the wall and I jump back, nearly slipping on the tiles. “One more time and I’ll break your neck.”
Well then. Horrified, I climb back into the shower.
After my hair is dry, I dress in the bathroom, now hyperaware of who might be hanging around my room in the hotel suite unobserved. At least I can smell Nathan coming from several rooms away. Sure enough, as I walk out into my bedroom the sharp stinging stink of him lingers.
The television is on, too. “Hello?” I say.
“It’s me,” Cole answers.
“And if I had walked out naked?”
“My eyes are closed. Can I open them now?”
I walk to the bench at the foot of the bed and sit down. “Yes. Why are you in my room?”
“Bored.”
“So, slamming Nathan into the wall isn’t enough to keep you entertained for a few minutes?”
“Ah.” He makes a small, regretful noise with his mouth. “You heard that. Sarah says I don’t play well with other boys. Oh, your phone kept beeping while you were in the shower.”
My heart skips a beat—what if it was Fia?—but I try to sound casual. “Who is it? You can check, I don’t mind.”
Cole gets up and then says, “Adam. Five texts. I can read them to you.” He pauses. “Unless they’re personal.”
I roll my eyes. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m pretty sure he’s desperately in love with my sister.”
Cole snorts. “He’s crazy.”
“He’d have to be, right?” I stop, horrified with myself. Cole bursts out with a shockingly staccato laugh and then I can’t help but laugh, too. Maybe it’s betraying Fia, I don’t know, but it feels good to be able to laugh about her with someone who knows her, or at least has met her. Makes me feel less alone.
I twist my hair up into a bun, a smile lingering on my face. “Oh, speaking of crazy, do I need to be concerned about Nathan?”
“No.”
“Because you’re watching him?”
“Because if he tries anything, you can handle yourself.”
I jerk my knee up, then pantomime grabbing my groin and falling to the floor in pain. I’m rewarded with another bark of laughter.
Pushing myself up, I sit on the floor and pull out my hair, redo it. “Did Rafael call?”