Page 80 of Touch

Because the topic riles her up, Love gets carried away. Andrew’s silence confirms he’s analyzing her response. Meanwhile, they surge into conflict, only the twangs of arrows, the vibrations of strings, and their panting exhalations breaching the quiet. Arrows soar. Blades puncture the trees. Mortal and immortal silhouettes cut across the snow.

Andrew is clever. Too late, Love realizes he’s been steering her toward an evergreen clearing. Turning in a circle, she aims her weapon, tensing with excitement when he emerges from a thicket, also targeting her.

They step around one another, neither of them disarming. As they circuit, Andrew’s rebuttal echoes through the woods. “Your so-called ideals have to do with flawlessness. In my realm, that’s an illusion. Lovers fuck up each other’s world, inspire each other, and go through hell and back with each other. They struggle together, heal together, and make sacrifices together. That’s what binds them. That makes them strong. Lightness and darkness. Pain and bliss. A real bond is an imperfect one. Humans like the sound of fate, but we also want to know we had something to do with our lives—that we earned what’s ours. Like hell do we want it to be faked.”

Love’s feet remain nimble while maneuvering around Andrew. “How do you know so much about being linked to another? How? When I’m the one who’s out there—” she jerks her bow toward the woodland, the village at its border, and the world beyond, “presiding over each of those matches.”

He strides forward until the points of their arrows tap. “Because I feel it with you.”

Her respiration hitches. “No one else?”

When he remains quiet, two reactions tear Love in half. Although he’s a self-proclaimed recluse, her jealousy fades. He’s never felt a bond with another potential mate, including Holly, yet Love detests the thought of him being alone.

“Where’s your mother?” she wonders.

Grief flickers across his face. “Dead.”

His hollow tone makes her stomach constrict. “I’m sorry,” Love whispers, though the gesture feels inadequate.

Andrew’s throat bobs, his grip on the longbow wavering. “I was young. She sped off an icy road and crashed us into a tree.”

Her weapon falters. “Why?”

“It was an accident. She wanted things she couldn’t have—namely, my real father. He left her for someone else the year before.” His expression grows remote, haunted. “Back then, we lived outside Evershire, in an apartment she could afford, although she pulled strings to get me into the school here. The day she died, she picked me up, and a song played on the stereo while we were driving home. It was a tune my dad and her used to dance to.”

He lowers his archery. “She tried to hide it from me, wiped her eyes under her glasses, and just like that—the glasses slipped off her face. But if I’d just leaned over to get them for her, she wouldn’t have taken her eyes off the fucking road.”

Love pictures herself dashing across the driveway, hauling his childlike frame out of the car and dragging him away before his mother can turn on the ignition. More than that, Love wants to do something, anything to wipe the sorrow and guilt from Andrew’s face.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she insists, her weapon falling to her side.

He glances away, a muscle thumping in his jaw. “She believed in the afterlife. In some of my books, I’ve created the types of worlds she would have loved, as if my writing is a portal, a way for her to find those places in death. But sometimes, I wish I’d died with her, so she wouldn’t have taken her final breath alone and ended up… wherever she really is… by herself.”

“Andrew. Do not ever think that.”

After a beat of silence, his voice flattens. “Growing up, I thought my family was invincible. I thought they could fix anything—broken toes, famine, animal extinction. I realized I was wrong after they split up. Then Ulrik got elected as the Rebound Husband who couldn’t make her happy. He adored my mother but never really won her heart, and he hasn’t gotten that failure out of his system.”

Love hisses, “So he takes the loss out on you.”

“She was driving because I had school in the village.”

“That means nothing! For that moment to happen, a million particulars had to align. You could no sooner blame the ice, the song, and the car’s speed. You did nothing wrong, and she would tell you as much if she could.”

Andrew glances back at Love, the lacquer of his irises softer now. “Even if it wasn’t my fault, Ulrik rages because he’s heartbroken. Although he hated being saddled with me after Mom’s death, he saw it through, kept me out of an orphanage. I owed him for that. So when I got older, and the book royalties increased beyond what I’d expected, I bought a house in the village. My mother dreamed of living here, so I got her the home she always wanted, and I moved Ulrik in with me.”

Love blinks in confusion. “If he resents you, why does he live there?”

“It’s an arrangement. Like I said, I owe him. He needs someone around, and I can afford the medical bills.” Andrewgives Love a grave look, frost clouding from his lips. “He’s got heart problems.”

That quiets her. This must be another reason why Andrew had been furious with Love for beseeching Anger to target Ulrik.

She opens her mouth to apologize, but Andrew shakes his head. “Don’t. I understand now.”

“I could have paired your mother with Ulrik,” Love says. “They would have been happy. If you had the choice, would you have stopped me?”

Instantly, she curses herself for using Andrew’s tragedy to validate her existence. Nevertheless, temptation flashes across his visage.

“Fair enough,” Andrew allows. “In that case, she might still be alive. But even the slightest change, the smallest shift in events, can alter the course of someone’s life. In that case, I might not have met you.”

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