Page 55 of A Grave Not Made For Mourning
“It’s everyone,” she sighs, dropping her head in the grass.
“Yeah… Me too.”
“It’s settled then,” Calista says. “We avoid the world together.”
“Isn’t that what we’ve been doing all these months?”
Calista smirks, but I can’t smile back.
“You know you could just go back,” I say. “All your friends, Fleur and Eleanora, even Aralia—they’d take you back.”
She pushes herself up, tilting her head as she meets my gaze, sun shining on her face. “And how do you feel about them?”
I drag my bottom lip between my teeth. “It isn’t about me.”
Calista pulls a joint out of her pocket. Holding it between her lips, she lights the end of it. She uses her ring finger to scratch her eye, gracefully blowing the smoke before saying, “They’ll know something is wrong.”
Hm. I kind of wanted her to say something about me, as opposed to herself. Something about our friendship.
But I suppose that is what drew us together—loneliness. Calista’s is shiny and new; mine has been rusting away for years.
She hands me the joint. I don’t often use intoxicants—secondhand emotion is enough. But sometimes it’s easy to smoke with Calista.
The drugs ease her out.
Calista’s doubt subsides, and she asks, “Do you want me to go back to them?”
“No,” I answer. “I’d rather not lose you.”
Her finger touches my glove as I hand her the joint.
She stares at the smoke, and I don’t think I’ll like what she says next. “Is that why you won’t take my love away? You’re scared you’d lose me if you did?”
It’s the subject I feared. One I don’t want to talk about.
“Calista…” I sigh. “You know that’s not why—”
“I don’t know that.”
I fold further into myself, eyes on the grass. Pulling the blades out and growing them back. Tug of war.
“If I took that kind of emotion from you, there would be a gap that needed to be filled,” I finally answer. “Like a black hole, whatever comes close would be sucked right into you.”
It’s not entirely that. Not to me. I’ve never manipulated emotions before, only ever turned them down for my own peace of mind.
The truth is, I’m not entirely surewhatwould happen.
I wouldn’t have to touch her, like the rest of the Eunoia would. It wouldn’t be arepeatof Xander—not exactly.
But either way, my power is dangerous. I’ve known it my whole life, even before I killed Xander.
We were playing tag on a cliff in Eunaris when I understood the extent of my danger. We were laughing, our feet slipping on the sharp rocks as we raced around. I’d caught him finally, and Xander kept laughing. He never bothered to care about losing.
But then something went wrong.
I must have left my hand on his shoulder for too long. I must have made a mistake.
A gasp escaped him—perhaps his final exhale—before his eyes rolled to the back of his head. His pupils vanished, replaced by white. His legs gave way, and he fell to the ground. The second half of his body dangled off the cliff, his hands hanging limp at his sides, not reaching for safety. He couldn’t.
