Page 88 of The Pansy Paradox
Then he turned things around—as if reverse psychology might help—and started talking about staying in King’s End forever. No college, nothing.
“I told him he was going to do great things, but he had to leave King’s End to do them.”
“The Sight?”
“In part. It would show me things, just glimpses, now and then. And then he said, ‘Not without you. If you’re staying, I’m staying.’ He got down on one knee and pulled out an engagement ring—his grandmother’s.”
Henry’s eyes widen. “And you were both?—?”
“Sixteen.”
Now he cringes, and I suspect he’s about to launch into a lecture about age-appropriate relationship milestones.
I raise my hands and shake my head. “I know. I know.” Even though I was only sixteen, I didn’t need hindsight, or even the Sight, to tell me this could only end badly.
“It’s so painful, that first time.” Henry covers his mouth again, as if he’s holding in the agony of a first heartbreak. “I’m guessing you turned him down.”
“The Sight did it for me. My nose started bleeding. I mean, really started bleeding. Blood soaked my shirt within moments. I ruined the blanket, trying to get it to stop. I got blood all over Daniel.” I shake my head as if I can banish the memory of all that red. “We looked like something from a slasher movie.”
Henry stares at me, astonishment and sorrow and deep concern playing across his features.
“Even at home, it wouldn’t stop.” I pause in my retelling, because I’ve been longing to ask this question for years. Nosebleeds are common, yes. But not this sudden and aggressive bloodletting. “Have you heard of such a thing? Of this happening to anyone with the Sight? Ophelia, maybe?”
“No, I’m afraid not.” He gives me a sidelong glance. “I’m not going to lie. It is rather alarming.”
“It was only that one time. It’s never happened again with that kind of force.”
Yet. It’s never happened again yet. Every once in a while, that fear assails me. What if it happens when I’m alone? With no one here to help? I don’t want to imagine that. I was a wreck, and it was my mother who took over once I stumbled into the house.
She called Daniel’s parents, because he was shell-shocked and in no condition to walk home alone. What she told them? About me? What was happening? I don’t know. I was in the downstairs bathroom painting the sink, mirror, and walls red. I couldn’t help but swallow some blood—there was just so much—and then I started vomiting as well.
Henry turns a page in the album as if he can discern what happened from the photographs alone. “What did your mother do?”
“There wasn’t much she could do. She called Adele, and they debated taking me to the hospital. My mother said that would make things worse and asked if there was some way to do a transfusion at home.”
Depending on their lineage, some agents can’t go to a local hospital. It might kill them, and blood incompatibility is the reason why. The Enclave even has its own blood bank for such emergencies.
“You know,” Henry says, “assuming your father was a local, that might not have been an issue.”
I open my mouth, close it, then try again. If he’s right, then my mother should have absolutely rushed me to the hospital or dialed 911. “The bleeding did stop, though, and then it was just the cleanup.”
The details are fuzzy. I was lightheaded, vomiting, and in no condition to remember much. But the more I let go of Daniel—and the idea that we could be together—the more the blood flow stemmed. I remember my mother crouched next to me on the bathroom floor, her hands gently cradling me, her words soothing the Sight. I know, darling girl. I know how much this hurts. It’s so hard to let him go.
“That’s the last time I saw Daniel,” I add. “I spent the next two weeks trying to recover in time for the Academy.”
That year, I was so anemic from blood loss that I didn’t need to pretend. I was utterly unremarkable. My Sight had depleted itself. It only perked up in August, in time for our last field exercise, much to Mort’s relief if not mine.
It was a brutal summer, made worse by Daniel’s utter silence. Not a single letter, and he had written daily the year before. Our friend group didn’t survive, either. I wasn’t friendless, but King’s End is a small town. Word got around. Nobody said anything mean, of course. But no one here has asked me out since. Which, considering the Screamers and the patrols and vanishing mothers, is probably just as well.
Henry turns another page in the photo album. “I want to apologize for making you relive this.”
“You didn’t know. Besides, it was years ago.”
Of course, when I arrived at the Academy that summer, Jack immediately sensed something was wrong. He folded me into a hug the moment I stepped from the airport shuttle. I told him and Mortimer an abbreviated version, redacting the part with all the blood. Jack thought I was suffering from a broken heart; Mort thought I was just moping.
Now I place a palm on my chest, not because my heart hurts but because it feels lighter, the shredded strands mending themselves back together. “It felt good to tell someone who’d understand.”
“Still. It was unfair of me, when you clearly didn’t want to talk about it.” Another page turn. Despite his words, the man can’t get enough of my prom. Does he find it quaint? Charming? Was that the word he used?
