The Complication (The Program #6)(33)

Wes turns over in the bed, facing me. His eyes are questioning, a little unsure. I’m beginning to shake, scared of what I’ll say. Scared of what it will do to him, to us.

“But I’m more interested in now,” he adds. “If I asked you how you felt about me right now, would you answer?”

My senses try to flood in, keep me from making a mistake. The past is one thing, but Wes wants now. And it’s the one thing I can’t give him. I’m trying to be a better person. I’m trying fucking really hard.

“No,” I reply.

“If I asked you to kiss me anyway, would you?” he whispers.

I watch the openness in his expression. That simple way Wes always had about him—this raw honesty. His fearlessness.

And despite how my heart aches for him, the word sounds like it comes from someone else when I whisper, “No.”

Wes seems shocked by my answer, but he quickly recovers and smiles.

“I bet I asked you out at least three times,” he says.

“Maybe even four,” I answer immediately, wishing I was the person who could make him happy. But knowing that I’m not.

Wes’s smile softens, and he sighs heavily, gazing at me. “Just friends, then,” he whispers.

“Just friends,” I reply.

The little bit of light reflects in his eyes. “Good night, Tate,” he says.

“Night.” We watch each other a moment longer, never touching, even though I can feel the heat from his body being so close to mine.

And when I close my eyes, I focus on being next to him. Just as I drift off, a tunnel opens into my memory, and I fall in.

? ? ?

“Don’t make me go home,” I whimpered, standing on my doorstep with Nathan. He stared down at me—worried, a little scared. I needed someone to love me, especially now that Wes didn’t. And I couldn’t tell Nathan the truth. I wouldn’t acknowledge it.

“Go in and sleep this off, Tatum,” Nathan said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

He was scared of The Program, and it overruled his worry for me. He turned and went to his house. The minute he disappeared inside, I jogged to my Jeep and got in.

My body shook, cold running up and down my arms. It was summer, but I was so cold. I was so fucking empty. For weeks I’ve been slowly draining away.

Tonight I saw Wes with another girl. I saw him smile at her, touch her arm. I couldn’t wrap my brain around the kind of hurt that created. I wasn’t just losing Wes—I was losing me. The person I was with him. The person I’d been for the past few years. Since meeting, we’d grown so much together, had so many firsts—and even more than that, we’d been surviving The Program together. I depended on him. I needed him. And, yes, I loved him.

But he didn’t love me anymore. Not in that way. And to me, it felt the same as if he hated me. As if he wished I were dead. As if he wished I would evaporate and leave him alone.

I was nothing anymore. I was no one.

I sputtered out a cry and put my fingers to my lips. I shoved my keys in the ignition and started the engine. I had to see him. Beg him to come back, work this out. He had to forgive me. He couldn’t just leave me like this. He never could before.

Tonight felt different, though. It felt final.

I wish I were dead.

I drove fast, speeding toward Wes’s house. He should be home by now, and if I could just talk to him—

“I love you,” I said out loud in the small space of my Jeep. “I love you, so you can’t do this to me.” My voice cracked, but I believed it was true. I could convince him to stay. I didn’t care why.

There were cars in the driveway of Wes’s house, so I pulled in behind them and rushed ahead to his basement entrance. I knocked, shivering.

Was I acting erratic? Was this how lives were ended, how The Program flagged people? My eyes began to tear up, and I thought about Suzie McColm, who was pulled from math class. She had been crying, but she didn’t fight. She let them lift her out of her seat, lead her to the door. Before she left, I heard her whisper: “Just let me die already.”

The Program was our collective nightmare. Our bogeyman. Our death sentence.

I knocked again on Wes’s door, harder. It occurred to me then that he wasn’t here. He was still out with her.

I put my hand over my eyes and leaned against the frame. I didn’t want to picture them together, but my mind went there anyway. Wes holding her cheek, kissing her with his eyes open. She was prettier than me—I knew that. He probably enjoyed looking at her. Touching her.

My cries intensified, and I slumped against the door. I pictured them in bed together. I pictured him murmuring her name. It was a spiral, a dark black spiral spinning me deeper and deeper into my grief.

I screamed and hit the door with my closed fist. There was a sharp sting as a cut opened across my knuckles, a bloody smear on his door. The shaking in my limbs grew, but my eyes were wide, my lips tight around my bared teeth. Maybe they were inside.

“Open the door,” I called. There was no answer, and I punched it again. “Open the door!” I screamed, and heard my voice echo three times down the road.

I was out of control—out of body, almost. I was mad—this was what it felt like to lose yourself. I sobbed and wrapped my arms around my waist.

I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t stop the shadow taking me over. The darkness. I just wanted to talk to him, and then I would be fine. I told myself I would be fine. I didn’t really believe it, though.