Rebel (Legend, #4)(25)

Her words hint at a part of myself that I haven’t revealed to anyone in years. It’s the part of me that still looks across Ross City and expects to see everything crumble. It’s the version of myself that wakes, gasping, from a nightmare of me back on the streets of Lake. I’m not the only one afraid of my past.

I reach out to touch her hand with mine. The warmth of her skin jolts through me, both new and familiar. “I know,” I tell her gently. “I remember enough about that time.”

She smiles sadly at me. “Do your memories still haunt you like they used to?”

“It’s not all back, but I remember most things now. Sometimes there’s a peculiar slant of light or the scent of smoke in the air, some small lingering thing that reminds me of something I can’t quite place.” I shake my head. “It’s like a dream of a different life.”

June turns to me. Her hair is shorter than it used to be, cut straight to her shoulders, and now I find one of those lost memories tugging at the edges of my consciousness. My fingers combing through her hair, my whisper against her ear.

She can tell I’m struggling. Nothing has ever slipped by her. “Near the train station that evening,” she murmurs, “when you said you remembered me and shook my hand, what was it that triggered that first thought?”

This part of us, too, feels stuck between being an old relationship and the beginning of something entirely new. I smile and look away. “The light in your eyes,” I reply. “Not everyone has the ability to draw people in with a single glance, June, but you have a very specific glow about you. Even if I hadn’t known you, I would have stopped and looked back. I would’ve introduced myself.”

June’s silent for a while, her eyes lingering on me, and I feel suddenly shy under that searing gaze. In the month since that fateful moment, we haven’t seen each other again. We haven’t chatted. A part of me doesn’t even dare believe that she’s here right now, in front of me.

There are so many pieces of our story that I still can’t recall. My time in the Republic’s prisons feels like a blur of blood and chains, an overwhelming sun and an all-consuming pain in my leg. I barely remember any of our time in the Colonies that June claims we experienced. There are important people missing, faces wiped clean.

For a long time, that included June.

On impulse, I move nearer to her and touch her arm. I half expect her to stiffen and move away, but she doesn’t. Instead, her breaths turn shallow, and she allows herself to lean closer too, until we’re close enough to feel the warmth emanating from our bodies.

I want to ask her how she feels about me. But that old fear returns, that maybe she’s come all this way to tell me that we’re best as only friends. She’s about to move, I live in a different country, and neither of us is anything except busy.

I remember that I loved you, I want to tell her. I’m in love with you. I love you still. But the words don’t emerge from my lips. They stay buried, trembling in my throat.

For a moment, I think this may be as close as we allow ourselves to get.

Then June moves before I can say more. She leans toward me, stopping a hairsbreadth away from my lips.

I can’t hold back any longer. I close that remaining distance between us—and my lips touch hers.

And everything inside me breaks, every barrier and hesitation and insecurity, it all shatters as the feeling of her with me crashes through my chest. I wonder if it will be like this every time we touch. Everything in me wants to press us against the wall and kiss her harder, to make up for all the time we’ve lost. I want her arms to wrap around my neck, pulling me down to her. I want her so badly. All the questions unanswered between us—What do we do? Where do we go from here?—fade away, leaving only the sharp present, her body warm in my embrace.

But I force myself to stay in the present, our kiss suspended in this uncertain zone between us, part of it a reunion, part of it a possibility that maybe this is as far as we can ever take it.

A pending call appears in my view, interrupting the rush of this moment. It’s from AIS, followed by a message and a map.

Crime scene in the Undercity. Come immediately.

Could there ever be a worse time for my job to get in the way? It’s almost as if life wants to keep us apart. I sigh and send a quick message back.

Emergency? Did we find the drone race location?

Yes, it’s an emergency. And no, we haven’t yet.

I whisper a silent curse.

June senses the break in the moment and pulls away. We’re both breathing heavily, dizzy from the rush of being so close.

“You should go,” she says, even though she doesn’t know what the message had read. Like everything else about me, she can probably sense that it’s something significant.

I don’t want to. I want to stay here, watching a star-filled night sky with her. The ache of being away from her for so long, the twinge of fear that, if I leave her side, I won’t be able to make my way back to her again, swells up in me with an overwhelming force.

Maybe she’s waiting for me to make the first move, to reach out and keep us from stepping apart.

You should go.

Those are her words, not mine.

Maybe I am misreading everything from her, then. I feel myself tearing away, my feet taking a step backward from her and letting the distance between us cool. I can’t tell if she’s disappointed or surprised. There’s so much that I’m unable to read about her now.