The Complication (The Program #6)(47)

“I will. Thanks,” I say, unlocking my car.

I get in, and as I close my door, I hear him murmur, “Good-bye, Tate,” before he jogs back toward his house.

? ? ?

Nathan is sitting on my porch when I arrive home. I texted him, saying I needed to talk before we went to the Adjustment office. Before I say anything, I drop down next to him on the top step, both of us staring toward the street.

“How bad is it?” Nathan asks.

“Bad,” I whisper before the floodgates open. I sob and tell him everything. I pour my heart out and listen as he says that one, Dr. Warren is the worst; two, I shouldn’t talk to strangers in grocery stores; and three, Wes needs to know about our relationship.

“I can’t believe you lied to him,” Nathan murmurs, petting my hair back from my wet cheeks. “You shouldn’t have done that, Tatum. You didn’t have to tell him the whole truth, but you shouldn’t have made shit up.”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” I say, my voice scratchy. Nathan smiles and bumps his shoulder into mine.

“Turns out,” he says, “life after memory erasure, implantation, and monitoring is a little tough to navigate. Go figure.”

I laugh. “Maybe you should be my therapist,” I tell him.

“You couldn’t afford me,” Nathan replies easily. He looks sideways with a smirk. The sun reflects on his face, and I turn toward the sky, wishing it would cloud over. Go away and leave me to grieve in the dark.

“Okay,” I say, waving my hands like I’m done with the topic. “Enough about my nonsense. Where were you earlier? I needed to talk to you about Jana. I saw her at school arguing with Derek Thompson in the hallway. Do they know each other? Has he been harassing her, too?”

“What?” Nathan asks, surprised. “She doesn’t know Derek.”

“She sure seemed like she did,” I say. “And then Derek came over to me and insinuated that he knew I had a secret, and that it was possibly The Program. So please tell me how the fuck Derek Thompson knows more about me than most people, and for the second part of that question, does that mean your girlfriend knows as well?”

Nathan looks troubled, and I wonder if I should have softened my inquiry. “I’m sorry,” I start to say, but he holds up his hand to let me know that I don’t have to apologize.

“I don’t know the deal with Derek,” he says. “But I didn’t tell Jana anything about you. And definitely nothing about The Program. So . . . I’m not sure what to think anymore.” His posture sags.

“Did you really have a talk with her yesterday?” I ask. “What about?”

“Let’s not—” he starts.

“No way,” I interrupt. “I’ve told you everything, Nathan. You don’t get to spare me your drama. What’s going on with her? Is she okay?”

“I like how you’re pretending to actually care about Jana,” he says, glancing over at me.

“I care about you,” I say quickly. “And, by extension, that means I care about your sketchy girlfriend, too.” I keep a straight face, but when he smiles, we both laugh.

“Fair enough,” Nathan says. “But it’s going to sound weird.”

“I can handle weird. I’m becoming an expert at it.”

“I was at her house yesterday,” Nathan says, “and she was making food when her mom came home from the store. I was chatting with her mother on the couch, and . . .” Nathan pauses, furrowing his brow. “And her mom leaned closer to me and whispered, ‘Be careful of that girl.’?”

Chills run up my arm, and my logical side wants me to jump to an easy answer. “Was she saying her daughter will break your heart?” I ask lightly.

“No.” He shakes his head. “I don’t think that was what she was saying at all. I got the impression . . . it seemed like she was scared of her.”

“Scared of Jana?” I ask.

“Yeah. Because then Jana came into the room, saw me sitting with her mother, and there was this slight . . . I don’t know, this flash of worry, I guess. Jana told her mother to leave us alone, and . . . she did. Her mom got up, shot me a pointed look, and then walked past Jana into the back of the house. Their body language, their lack of resemblance—it was weird. If I’d seen them together anywhere else, I would have thought they were hostile strangers.”

“They might not be close—like me and my mom.”

Nathan leans forward, elbows on his knees, seeming to think it over. “Anyway, I asked Jana about it,” he says, “and she went off on me. Told me I shouldn’t interrogate her mother, as if I was the one to start the conversation. She told me she loved me, and asked why I didn’t love her.”

There’s a twist in my gut, a thought that hadn’t occurred to me. “Do you love her?” I ask quietly.

Nathan swallows hard. “I think so,” he says. “But the whole situation . . .” He shakes his head. “It’s kind of fucked. She told me I was hurting her by never including her with my friends. She said I was an asshole—and not in an endearing way. It’s why I brought her to your house with me yesterday, to show her that I care. I promised to include her more.”

“And lunch today?” I ask.