The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2)(96)

“I didn’t know that you —”

“That’s my point! Did it even occur to you?”

It had not.

“You wouldn’t have gone someplace without Gansey, though,” Blue snapped. “You two make a grand couple! Kiss him!”

Adam cocked his head witheringly.

“Well, I don’t want to be just someone to kiss. I want to be a real friend, too. Not just someone who’s fun to have around because — because I have breasts!”

She didn’t generally swear, but breasts felt as close to swearing as Adam could imagine at that moment. The combination of breasts and the morphing of the conversation annoyed him. “Nice, Blue. Gansey was right. You really can be a raging feminist.”

Blue sealed her mouth. Her shoulders trembled slightly: not like fear, but like the tremors before an earthquake.

He shot out, “You still didn’t answer my question. Nothing of what you just said actually has any bearing on us.”

Her lips made a sour shape. “You want the truth?”

“It’s what I wanted at the beginning of all this,” Adam said, even though he didn’t actually know what he wanted from her anymore. He wanted this fight to be done. He wished he hadn’t come. He wished he’d asked her about Glendower instead. He wished he’d thought to ask her to the party. How could he have? His head was too full, too empty, too askew. He’d walked too far out, right past solid ground, but he couldn’t seem to turn around.

“Right. The truth.” She balled her fists and crossed her arms. “Here it is. I’ve been told by psychics my whole life that if I kiss my true love, I’ll kill him. There it is. Are you happy? I didn’t tell you right away because I didn’t want to say true love and scare you off.”

The trees wobbled behind her. Another vision was trying to manifest. He tried to untangle himself from it to sift his memories, trying to coordinate their near-kisses with her confession of this deadly prophecy. It didn’t feel real, but nothing did.

“And now?”

“I don’t know you, Adam.”

That’s not your fault, whispered the air. You are unknowable.

“And now?”

“Now? Now —” Finally, Blue’s voice shook a little. “I didn’t tell you until just now because I realized it didn’t matter. Because it’s not gonna be you.”

He felt it like one of his father’s punches. A moment of deadness and then blood rushing to the point of contact. And then it wasn’t sadness, but the now-familiar heat. It tore through him like an explosion, busting windows and devouring everything in an instantaneous blast.

In slow motion he could imagine the swing of his hand.

No.

No, he’d done this before with her, and he wasn’t doing it again.

He spun away, one fist on his forehead. With the other, he struck the wall, but not hard. Just like he was grounding himself, discharging. He tore apart the anger, limb from limb. Focused on the burning, terrible fire in his chest until it went out.

It’s not gonna be you.

And at the end, all that was left was this: I want to leave.

There had to be some other place he hadn’t been yet, some soil where this emotion wouldn’t thrive.

When he turned back around, she was motionless, watching him. When she blinked, two tears appeared like magic on her cheeks. The fast tears. The ones that were in your eyes and down your chin before you realized you were crying. Adam knew about those.

“Is that the truth?” he asked. He asked it so quietly that the words came out gravelly, like a violin played too softly.

Two more tears had queued up, but when she blinked, they remained in her eyes. Shining little lakes.

Not you.

Not him with his shabby anger, his long silences, his brokenness.

Not you.

Look at you, Adam, Gansey’s voice said. Just look.

Not you.

“Prove it,” he whispered.

“What?”

Louder: “Prove it.”

She started shaking her head.

“If it’s not me, it’s not going to do anything, is it?”

She shook her head harder. “No, Adam.”

Louder. “If it’s not gonna be me, Blue, it doesn’t matter, does it? That’s what you said. It’s never gonna be me.”

Miserably, she said, “I don’t want to hurt you, Adam.”

“Either it’s the truth or it’s not.”

Blue put a hand on his chest and pressed. “I don’t want to kiss you. It’s not going to be you and me.”

Not you.

Since the last time his father had hit him, Adam’s left ear had been dead and unresponsive. No hissing, no static. Just the absence of sensation.

That was how his entire body felt now.

“Okay,” he said, voice colorless.

Blue wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I’m sorry. I really am.”

“Okay.”

Feeling was coming back, but it was unfocused and dull. Shimmering and fuzzy. It wasn’t going to be him and her. It wasn’t going to be him and Gansey. There was no more not here, not now. It was here. It was now. It was just going to be him and Cabeswater.

I am unknowable.

He was going down the stairs, though he didn’t remember leaving Blue’s room. Had he said anything? He was just going. He didn’t know where. Voices and images flickered around him, pressing crookedly.