Page 6 of Captured Immune

I was wrong.Liz doesn’t understand, and I don’t think she cares to.

“What do you mean, you didn’t break up with her?” Liz has left her satin gloves lying on the backstage coffee table and has forced me to sit on the couch with her.

The rest of the band and crew left a while ago. I delayed this conversation by taking a long bathroom break. I’d still be in there if Liz hadn’t waltzed into the men’s room to call me out on my bullshit. Leave it to her to know that I was simply hiding in a stall to avoid this.

“I didn’t break up with her. Technically,sheleft me.” I can still hear Arella’s tires squealing from driving away so fast.

“Why would Ari do such a thing?”

“Because,” I groan, “it wasn’t working.”

“Do you want it to?”

I rub my hands over my face and groan again—louder this time. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because I care about you.”

It’s ridiculous that Liz cares about me at all. I’m a fuckup. She should start investing her precious energy into someone who actually matters.

I slouch back against the couch. “You’ve never had to have a therapy session with me about any other girl before. Why do you have to start now?”

“Because Ari’s different, and you know it. With her, you’re more vibrant and happy. You two have something special most people can’t find in a lifetime. It doesn’t even make sense, because she’s an Ordinary and it’s totally illegal and against all biology for you to love her, but I’ve never seen two people more meant for each other than you and her. I know you believe that too. So why are you acting like you’re just gonna let her go?”

Liz is right. Arellaismeant for me. She’s my soul mate—something I didn’t even believe in until I felt theglimmer. I used to think getting a sickening sense whenever your soul mate was in danger was just some stupid thing Zordinaries made up to put claim on each other—until last month. I was on my way to Arella’s apartment when a sudden wave of nausea hit me like bricks to the stomach. My throat went dry and I couldn’t stop coughing. Then I found Arella being attacked by spiders.

The week after, when her car was hit by a truck, my body knew something was wrong. I was nowhere near her when it happened, yet sudden nausea hit me again. I got so dizzy, I threw up. Given that Arella’s an Ordinary, my sicknesses at those exact times could have been a coincidence, but that’s one hell of a coincidence.

“Tell me what you want, T,” Liz says. “What would make you happy?”

“I dunno.” Happiness seems like a foreign idea right now.

“Do you want her back?”

“I dunno.”

“Yes, you do. You either want her or you don’t. Which is it?” Liz isn’t stupid. We both know the answer. She’s just trying to get me to say it out loud.

“Of course I want her back,” I grumble.

“Then go get her. Whatever you guys fought about, talk through it.”

“It’s not that easy.”

Liz scoffs. “You’re a smart man. Figure it out.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I just can’t,” I snap.

Like always, Liz isn’t having my attitude. She snaps right back at me. “Why not?”

I give in. “Because she slept with another man.”

“No, she didn’t.”

I scowl at the conviction in her tone. “How are you so sure?”

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