Maddy tugged on the handle. The door opened with a metallic clang. The gym was dark and cool and smelled of hardwood and cleaning solvent. Their footsteps echoed in the dark as they entered. Jacks walked forward and sat heavily on the floor. Maddy groped along the wall until she found a metal control panel and a row of switches. She threw the switches on one at a time, and slowly the gym lights started to glow. Jacks sat there in the half-light, his arms resting on his knees and his head bowed. Even for an Immortal he looked utterly exhausted. Maddy knew well enough the school was only a temporary solution, that on Monday teachers and students would be streaming into the halls again. But for now it would do—it simply had to. Jacks needed to rest. Even Maddy herself was too exhausted to think straight anymore. They could plan their next steps in the morning.
She found a stack of gymnastics mats in the corner and pulled the top one down. Awkwardly unfolding it, she dragged it to half-court.
“Come lie down,” she said.
He walked over and fell hard on the mat.
“Are you really going to be okay?” she asked.
“I will be, I just need some time,” he said wearily.
Maddy sat beside him and pulled her knees up to her chest. She listened to Jacks’s deep breathing. Vivian’s crying face still played in her mind.
“Can I ask you a question,” Maddy said finally, “if I promise not to be stubborn about it?”
“Sure,” he said.
“What you said on the rooftop,” she said, her voice small. “About being . . . meant to be together. Was that really the truth? I mean, do you really believe that?”
Jacks looked at her. Maddy was very still, her eyes at her feet. “I just don’t understand. Why would you go through all this trouble when you have someone like her?” She huffed in defeat. “I’m not blind, Jacks. She’s . . . incredible.”
“Vivian?” Jacks asked. Maddy nodded.
Jacks studied her for a moment in that way he did, scrutinizing her, then lay down slowly on the mat and looked up at the lights.
“When I got home that night after you and I met, things were chaotic in my house. The police were there, my mom was crying, Mark was yelling, but my mind, Maddy, my mind kept returning to you. I couldn’t understand why. I went and sat on the deck outside my room and searched the city lights until I found your uncle’s diner. I watched the sign until it went off.”
Maddy’s expression had turned incredulous.
“You don’t believe me?”
“I don’t believe your room has its own deck.” She groaned.
Jacks laughed a little.
“I was thinking about our conversation. I didn’t even understand why. My mind just kept returning to that flash in your eyes, and what I had felt when we touched. I’d never felt anything like it before in my life. I had to see you again. So . . .” He paused, suddenly embarrassed. “The next day I did a little research and found out where you went to school.”
“I was wondering how you found me.” Maddy laughed.
“Angels have their ways,” he said, grinning. “I went, expecting you to be thrilled to see me, but you pushed me away. No one had ever done that to me before. It made me crazy—and only more determined. I went to your window that night, not knowing what I was doing there, almost unconscious. I just had to. Then you woke up, and we started talking. I told myself I was there because I just wanted to win, you know, I just wanted you to say you forgave me. Then it would be over. But then after I took you flying, you pushed me away again.” He shook his head. “And every time you pushed me away, Maddy, it only made me more . . . fascinated by you. More interested.”
“That’s hard to believe,” Maddy said. “Even I have to admit I was being impossible. I tried hinting so many times that I wanted to be left alone, but you didn’t even seem to notice. Or care.”
“You were dropping hints?”
“Sure. Girls do that. I guess you don’t have much experience in the rejection department, but every girl knows how to get rid of unwanted boys. I think it’s part of our DNA.”
“Ouch,” Jacks said in a mock grimace.
“You know what I mean,” Maddy said, and felt her cheeks flushing.
“You have to understand how predictable people are to me. Every day, everyone does whatever I say. They smile and say yes to everything I want. They’re either scared of me, or Angelstruck by me, or paid by me. So once I got over being furious about it, and I was furious—you get used to getting what you want from people all the time—I realized something. You were acting that way because you weren’t treating me like a celebrity. You were just treating me like anybody else.” He paused. “No one had ever seen me for me, Maddy, not Vivian, not anyone.”
Maddy shrugged. “I didn’t do it consciously. I’ve just never understood what the big deal was about Angels.”
“I kn
ow,” Jacks said, and laughed. “You’ve already made that point very clear to me.” He rolled on the mat, trying to get comfortable, and winced.