Shadow Me (Shatter Me #4.5)(4)

I’m frozen for a moment, watching the water pool in my upturned hands. I sigh, press my forehead to the cool, slick tile as the hot water pelts my back. I feel a measure of relief as my muscles begin to relax, the heat and steam releasing knots of tension under my skin. I try to focus on the luxury of this shower, on my gratitude for this miracle of hot water, but my less gracious thoughts keep circling me, pecking at my heart and mind like emotional vultures.

I’m so happy for my friends. I love them, even when they piss me off. I care about them. I want their joy. But it still hurts a little when it feels like, everywhere I look, everyone seems to have someone.

Everyone but me.

It’s crazy how much I wish I didn’t care. I wish, so much, all the time, that I didn’t give a shit about this sort of thing—that I could be like Warner, a frozen, unforgiving island; or even like Adam, who’s found his happiness in family, in his relationship with his brother—but I’m like neither. Instead, I’m a big, raw, bleeding heart, and I spend my days pretending not to notice that I want more. That I need more.

Maybe it sounds weird to say, but I know I could love the shit out of someone. I feel it, in my heart. This capacity to love. To be romantic and passionate. Like it’s a superpower I have. A gift, even.

And I’ve got no one to share it with.

Everyone thinks I’m a joke.

I run my hands down my face, squeezing my eyes shut as I remember my interaction with Nazeera last night.

She came up to me, I try to remind myself.

I never approached her. I didn’t even try to talk to her again, not after that day on the beach when she made it clear she wasn’t even a little bit interested in me. Though it’s not like I would’ve had a chance to talk to her after that, anyway; everything got crazy after that. J got shot and everyone was reeling, and then all that shit with Warner and Juliette went down, and now here we are.

But last night I was just minding my own business, still trying to figure out what to do about the fact that our supreme commander was slowly marinating in half a pint of Anderson’s best whisky, when Nazeera came up to me. Out of the blue. It was right after dinner—hell, she wasn’t even present at dinner—and she just showed up, like an apparition, cornering me as I was leaving the dining room. Literally backed me into a corner and asked me if it was true, that I had the power of invisibility.

She looked so mad. I was so confused. I didn’t know how she knew and I didn’t know why she cared, but there she was, right in front of me, demanding an answer, and I didn’t see the harm in telling her the truth.

So I said yes, it was true. And she looked suddenly angrier.

“Why?” I said.

“Why what?” Her eyes flashed, big and wide and electric with feeling. She was wearing a leather hood, and the lights of a nearby chandelier glinted off the diamond piercing near her bottom lip. I couldn’t stop staring at her mouth. Her lips were slightly parted. Full. Soft.

I forced myself to look up. “What?”

She narrowed her eyes. “What are you talking about?”

“I thought— I’m sorry, what are we talking about?”

She turned away, but not before I saw the look of disbelief on her face. There might’ve been outrage, too. And then, lightning fast, she spun back around. “Are you just pretending to be dumb all the time? Or do you always talk like you’re drunk?”

I froze. Pain and confusion swirled in my head. Pain from the insult, and confusion from— Yeah, I had no idea what was happening.

“What?” I said again. “I don’t talk like I’m drunk.”

“You’re looking at me like you’re drunk.”

Shit, she was pretty.

“I’m not drunk,” I said. Stupidly. And then I shook my head and remembered to be angry—she’d just insulted me, after all—and I said, “Anyway, you’re the one who came after me, remember? You started this conversation. And I don’t know why you’re so mad— Hell, I don’t even know why you care. It’s not my fault that I can be invisible. It just happened to me.”

And then she shoved her hood back from her face and her hair shook out, dark and silky and heavy, and she said something I didn’t hear because my brain was freaking out, like, should I tell her that I can see her hair? Does she know that I can see her hair? Did she mean for me to see her hair? Would she freak out, right now, if I told her that I could see her hair? But then, also, just in case I wasn’t supposed to be seeing her hair right now, I didn’t want to tell her that I could see her hair because I was afraid she’d cover it up again, and, if I was being honest, I was really enjoying the view.

She snapped her fingers in my face.

I blinked. “What?” And then, realizing I’d overused that word tonight, I added a “Hmm?”

“You’re not listening to me.”

“I can see your hair,” I said, and pointed.

She took a deep, irritated breath. She seemed impatient. “I don’t always cover my hair, you know.”

I shook my head. “No,” I said dumbly. “I did not know that.”

“I couldn’t, even if I wanted to. It’s illegal, remember?”

I frowned. “Then why have you been covering your hair? And why’d you give me such a hard time about it?”