Page 105 of A Grave Not Made For Mourning
“Will I… will I grieve her?” Calista finally asks.
The question stuns me. Is she not already grieving Lilac?
“I don’t know.” I shake my head. “Probably not.”
If I were to do what she asked of me, I don’t think she’d feel anything.
I’m not sure I will.
Calista pulls her hands farther from me. She still thinks I need skin-to-skin contact to control her—like all Eunoia do. I’ve never given her a reason to believe otherwise.
“Will I remember how I felt before we fell in love?” she asks quickly, panicking. “All the years before?”
I look down, staring at my shoes, as if they can answer the questions for me. “They don’t teach us about emotional manipulation. It isn’t legal here.”
“What if I’m not ready?”
“You’re scared out of your mind,” I tell her, and she hates that I can read her. “But you’re hopeful. I don’t know why for either.”
Calista steps back, sitting at one of the empty desks. Her hands shake against the surface as she holds the wood tightly.
“I don’t want to leave Lilac alone in this feeling. I thought I was ready to forget, to let go. But I love her too much to be that selfish.” She shakes her head as she looks up at me. “I can’t do it, not unless you take her feelings, too.”
Her gaze finds mine as I settle into the desk beside her. “You know I can’t do that if she doesn’t want me to.”
“But it’d be better for all of us,” Calista says in a rush. “We’re being forced to marry each other’sbrothersfor gods’ sake! There is no point in maintaining our love when it will only break us.”
Her desperation cracks her resolve. Her body slowly crumples over the desk. She won’t beg me, because she feels she is above it. But she wants to.
She wants to cry and plead.
Slowly, I put my shields back up—the ones I’ve been practicing with Ms. Ferner. I’ve hardly mastered them.
They’re a fail-safe. Ms. Ferner fears I could override someone’s mind evenwithouttouching them—that I could kill with a verbal command and eye contact.
The shields are meant to contain me. To keep my powers behind their walls.
My gloved fingers brush her shoulder. “Let me try to help you first.”
Calista shakes her head, hesitant, but her gaze meets mine. It’s all I need to convince her of anything I please.
Anything at all.
“Do you want this?” I ask.
“Yes.”
With her gaze locked on mine, I say, “Tell Lilac how you feel.”
I know what this will cost me. I’ll lose Calista. If she returns to Lilac and her old friends, I’ll be forgotten, a memory of a girl she used to know.
But I’ve felt her heartbreak everyday. I’ve felt Lilac’s confusion, and this is the one thing I can do to change that.
Calista gasps, choking on a breath as she tries to look away—but can’t.
She’s too late. Her mind is already mine to mold. I don’t need to say anything more to convince her, but I do.
“You want to try to find a way to make your love work.” I release her shoulders.
