Supernova

Chapter Sixty - A Little Party Never Killed Nobody

I wish I'd never met Elias.

What a strange sentiment.

It swirled around my head until each of the words became meaningless jumbles of sounds and letters belonging to no real language in the real world. Still, it repeated over and over and despite the fact that I'd forgotten what it meant, I knew for certain that it was true.

I woke up beside Demon that morning, knowing instinctually that Needles would have left for the training gyms already, still feeling that way. His heavy black and red arm was still holding me in a tight clutch against himself that I could have easily pried my way out of but chose not to.

Fuck you, Elias, I then thought to myself, and I knew what those words meant. Fuck you for everything.

When Demon eventually started stirring, I pretended to be asleep and listened to him tighten his grip and take a few deep inhales close to my head. I wished time would stop and I could spend the rest of my life wrapped here.

"I," he started in a whisper.

Say it, I begged him silently.

I couldn't stop him without giving myself away, and I wouldn't dare. I thought, maybe, if he said it, here, now, it would speak into existence a world where only the two of us existed and it would fix everything that had started falling apart the day he'd pointed Elias out to me. I forgot about everything else. Elias waiting in my dorm room, Momo's openly voiced hatred, his inability to tell the two of us apart, the fantasy of some fake husband who would be able to. None of it would matter in the slightest. He repeated that word again, the first step off the cliff, I, and then caught himself and backed away from the edge and scoffed lightly. I heard him swallow hard, and then I was shoved out of his grip and out of the linens and onto the floor.

"You're still here?" He asked, disgusted and annoyed, as I rubbed my fists into my eyes on the floor, as if I'd arisen with the impact.

It was as much an invitation to forget about the night before as it was an invitation to leave. As with any other issue Demon and I have ever had, it melted away into a thin veil of bitterness in the daylight. I found myself wondering if this method was better or worse. Behind an impenetrable fortress of legal documents and signatures and the looming threat of what lay outside, Elias and I had always been honest with each other. More or less. We picked apart our problems and intricacies and secrets until they were a map laid out on our bar that outlined every shortcoming, every thorn ridden trail, every impasse. It hurt to look at, but at least there was a legend, and the trails were outlined clear enough for even Cassie I-have-never-touched-a-book-I-wasn't-forced-to-read Stronghold to understand. If Demon and I had a map, it was just him and I, both capital cities in opposite corners, and between us was nothing but a haunted forest that the locals knew to stay away from because nobody had ever survived exploring it.

"I'll just go, I guess," I said, shrugging as I pulled myself to standing. Don't make me leave.

He made some disgusted type of noise as he rolled off the other side of the bed and strolled into the bathroom, without even as much of a glance over at me, and closed and locked the door behind him. I heard the shower start, and I figured it was probably best for both of us if I got the fuck out of here before he re-emerged. I looked around for my clothes from the night before, but both my sleeping clothes and the offering dress were nowhere to be found. After I became sufficiently sure I wouldn't find them, I ripped the top sheet off the bed and wrapped it around myself, deciding that it was going to have to do.

Elias was waiting for me, reading at the bar, as always. His bookmark slid into the book and he looked over at me, his expression blank and his eyes amused. He didn't bother lingering on my lack of clothing or late hour with which I was returning. He just raised his eyebrows every so slightly and asked me if I'd had an enjoyable night.