Page 49 of Jake and Conner
"There's a demo in Lake Forest next Saturday. I'm thinking about going."
He said that as if he hadn't made up his mind yet, but I knew that he had. All he wanted now was to see how I would react. To be honest, I wasn't surehowto react. My body tensed even without my conscious input the moment he said the word 'demo'.
It wasn't just that I worried about him getting hurt, I also worried about getting into an argument about this, the way we so often had in the past.
"Raphael would come too," Conner added when I didn't say anything. "It's only going to be for a few hours. It's probably going to be a fairly peaceful event."
"So nothing for me to worry about?"
"Nothing for you to worry about," Conner confirmed.
I chewed this over in my head, trying to remember if I was scheduled for a shift the Saturday of the demo. But even if I wasn't, Conner would probably get upset if I tried to tag along with him. He'd told me repeatedly that he didn't need a bodyguard. "Okay," I said, taking his hand in my own and intertwining our fingers.
"Just like that?" Conner asked, studying my face, although I wasn't sure what he was looking for.
"I can't talk you out of it, anyway." I could never talk Conner out ofanything.
"That's never stopped you from trying before," Conner pointed out.
"It's almost like youwantme to argue with you."
"I don't. But I wish we could have... I don't know... a normal conversation about this?"
"How would that conversation go?"
Conner sighed. "We could talk like any two adults who aren't scared of pissing each other off by voicing their opinions." He squeezed my hand. "I'm not going to leave you just because you disagree with something I do."
"You know my opinion," I reminded him. "If it was up to me, you wouldn't go, but it's not up to me. So what do you want me to say?"
Conner stopped walking, so I did too. The dogs took the chance to examine all the different smells on the sidewalk more closely, and I took the chance to peer into Conner's eyes. I really didn't know what he was expecting of me just then, but it seemed neither did he.
"I just don't want this to stand between us," he said. "What do I have to do for you to be okay with this? Isn't there some kind of compromise we can reach?"
I considered this. "I'm always going to worry." Nothing much I could do to change that. Every time I pictured Conner at a demonstration, I pictured him getting tear gassed or trampled on or stabbed with knife by someone who didn't agree with his opinion--someone who thought omegas shouldn't have opinions at all. There were still too many of those maniacs around. One time I'd seen people march through my town back when I was still in college. Most of them had been omegas, carrying signs and banners protesting a new law that would make it harder for them to get scholarships.
On a spur of the moment decision, I walked with them for a while, thinking of Conner back home and how proud he would be of me when I told him about this later. But only about twenty minutes after I'd joined the procession, a shot rang out through the crowd and one of the omegas who'd been walking only a few feet in front of me fell to the ground, clutching his side and a look of pure horror on his face.
For a second or two, we couldn't process what had happened. Then the crowd split apart in a panic, people pushing past each other and even pushing each other to the ground in a hurry to get away.
The omega who'd been shot at wasn't the only one to get injured as a result of that attack.
I couldn't deny that witnessing all of this had done a number on my brain.
I knew that the chances of anything like that happening to Conner were low, but as long as they weren't zero, I was always going to feel like catastrophe was imminent whenever he went off to parade his opinions in the streets.
Conner stroked a hand down my arm as if to summon me back to reality. "What are you thinking about?" he asked.
"All the terrible, terrible things that could happen to you while I'm not around," I responded truthfully. It didn't even have to be an outside attack. "What if you're stuck in the crowd and you get one of your heats?" There were predators everywhere.
"Don’t worry about that. My medication works pretty well when you’re not around, and I promise I’ll take cover if I feel things start to change.”
"Okay."
"I appreciate that you want to protect me, Jake, but I can take care of myself. You have to accept that."
"I accept that."
Conner gave me a kiss. "Thank you."
