Supernova

Chapter Seventy Two - The Insane Apple Doesn't Fall From From the Insanity Tree

"It doesn't matter."

Admittedly, I hadn't talked to Demon in a while. Elias and I had done another month of Eli and Nova missions. It had been his suggestion and I hadn't fought him on it. I hadn't said anything about our little spat in the bathtub, and he hadn't asked, but Demon and I weren't exactly masters of subtlety, and Elias was, well, Elias.

As far as Demon and I went, it had been over a month of radio silence.

Yet here he was, at the door of my empty room that I'd begrudgingly answered, offering me a semblance of an apology.

"What?" I said back.

"It doesn't matter."

"I heard you."

"Okay. And?"

"I don't believe you."

We stared at each other a while. His eyes sure were silent now. I wasn't sure whether or not I was lying. I wanted to believe him, sure. It had been what I'd wanted. But it felt fake and orchestrated and too good to be true, like everything good in my life usually was.

After a while of staring, Demon rolled his eyes and pushed his way inside. I could have fought him, but I didn't.

"Shut up," he told me, shoving me.

"You shut up," I said back, not stopping him. "What do you want?"

He threw himself down onto the bed. "To talk."

"About what?"

"Whatever you want."

I paused at the door. This wasn't good. And by that I meant that it was good, which meant that it was absolutely not to be trusted. The room felt very small all of a sudden.

He eventually coaxed me into joining him over on the bed, which I did. He was laying on my side, so I lay on Elias'. We didn't talk for a long while; we just lay on our backs, looking up at the ceiling, listening to each other breathe.

"If you could live anywhere in the world," he eventually said. "Where would it be?"

I shut my eyes and forced myself into endless silence. I focused back on the sound of our breath so that I didn't puke or cry. What the fuck was he doing? We shouldn't be talking about these things. That was in and of itself may have seemed an innocent question, but trust me, it wasn't. These were heavy future laden questions that monarchy kids knew better than to ask each other, unless...

And Demon had spent too much time with Elias and I to feign naivety.

"I don't know," I answered. It was the only answer I had. "I don't care."

"Bullshit," he scoffed. "You really want to spend your whole life in California?"

If you're thinking that word came out sounding childish and condescending, you'd be right.

"No," I said honestly. "I don't want to live there. I'd rather go anywhere else."

"Anywhere else?"

"I guess," I said slowly. "I'll live wherever my husband's from."

"What if he's from California?"

"He won't be." I knew that much for certain. "I'd rather die than marry anyone from there."

"Oh," he said. "Cool."

"Cool," I agreed.

This was getting dangerous. I couldn't bear opening my eyes. But still, there was something different than when we'd spend time together just goofing off, which was sad, horribly and painfully sad, but guarded. We didn't often talk like this. We didn't often talk at all. We didn't know much about each other outside of what we'd learned through the grapevine that was Needles and Elias.