Planet Omega

Chapter 16

  Emma isn't with me when I awake. It's probably for good reason anyway, because her kiss is the first thing my mind wanders to when I'm conscious. Flashes of what we've done litters my memory, and it's impossible to remove Emma's searching hands from my body. I still feel her fingers on my skin, her desperate kiss on my lips. I still hear her breathing heavily, shakily, like it had taken all her willpower to remove herself from me.

I run a hand over my face and then stare up at the paper origami stars dangling down from the train car ceiling. It happened, right? It hadn't been just a dream. It couldn't have been. Even my dreams aren't so vivid, so real.

"Fuck," I mutter under my breath and turn to the other side to get comfortable in the bed again. If I could stay here, hidden from the rest of the world forever, I would. Getting up requires facing the consequences of my involuntary actions. I hurt people when I hadn't even meant to, and I know I have to see about it.

My arm hurts from the pressure I'd put on the wound with the makeshift bandage, but at least I didn't bleed all over Emma's sheets. Phin had remained true to her word, that she wouldn't cause long lasting damage. It was me who'd fucked up.

The heaviness still sits on my chest, settled and comfortable, and I know it's there to stay for a long while. Until I figure my head out, I'm going to be this person. But it doesn't mean I can't fix the things that are fixable. I may never be okay, but I don't need to bring the others down with me.

I wake up a little while later, the sun still shining, and I'm still in Emma's bed. I have to get up. I can't stay here all day. I can't believe Emma's let me stay as long as I have. "Get up," I say to myself out loud. "Get up." After a few moments, I manage to sit up, but I dread being awake.

Once I hop out of the train car, I spot Phin almost immediately, leaning back in a chair under the tarp that connects Mateo's cars to the main three. She notices me before she stops cleaning her knife for just a moment, but she doesn't look up. God forbid anyone make it easy for me.

"Phin," I begin, approaching her while glancing around. Where are the others?

"What do you want?" She's normally hostile, acting like she doesn't want any part of being on a team, but her eyes always sparkle for a moment when she's invited to join. This time, there's an edge to her words, a cold, sharp, cutting edge.

No, I'm not one for pretty words and grand apologies. I don't know what the right way to say anything is. I'm already fucking this up before I even said anything. "I'm sorry...I tried to kill you."

She ceases movement again, and lifts her gaze at me through her eyebrows. "Really? That's the best you've got?"

Anger dares to rise in me, and I force it back down. I have no reason to be getting angry right now. "I don't have a good excuse for doing what I did. Trauma, I guess, but..." I shake my head. "I don't actually want to kill you. I don't even dislike you." Phin scoffs at those last words. "I'm fucked up, all right? You've been right about me from the very start, and I have no idea how to fix it. Yesterday, wasn't on purpose. Me pretending that I've been okay all this time was on purpose, and it led to yesterday's actions."

Phin looks back down at her knife, bored with my words. I don't know what I can say, I don't know what I can do to make her see that I didn't mean for it to happen.

I get down on my knees. I really fucking do it. Right there in the dirt, in front of Phin's chair. My actions surprise even myself, because I don't remember planning to literally beg on my knees. "You asked us for our help, more or less, and you asked us to trust you, more or less. I know I treat you like an enemy, and maybe that played a role in what happened yesterday. We trained, and my mind saw you as my enemy because my anger, my unresolved everything about this world we live in..."