The Complication (The Program #6)(80)

I walk inside his room and close the door behind me. It’s dimly lit, the high-set window not enough on a darkened, stormy day. But Wes doesn’t flip on the lights as he leads us into the living room area.

I sit on the couch, and Wes comes to the coffee table and turns his laptop in my direction before telling me he’ll be right back. He jogs up the stairs and disappears inside his house.

I smile at the wallpaper on his computer, a vintage motorcycle, mid-repair. It’s simple, honest. I click open the browser, and his last page pulls up. It’s a board called Survivor Rate, and the quick description says it’s a forum for survivors of the epidemic. It has over ten thousand members.

I click on the first thread and start to read through, when I hear Wes close the door and lock it before bounding down the stairs. I look up, and he holds out a bag of frozen peas.

“For your head,” he says. “I tried to find an aspirin, but my mom won’t keep any pills in the house.”

“Oh,” I say, taking the icy bag from him. “Thank you.” It’s kind of sweet of him to do that without me asking. I move my legs aside as he scoots past me and drops down onto the couch in his usual spot. I gently press the peas to my head, groaning at the pressure.

“This is the one,” Wes starts, turning the screen so he can see it too, “where the guy had the picture of Michael.”

“He goes by Realm,” I say, and feel Wes turn to me. I point at the screen to move forward. “Can I see the picture?”

“Sure,” Wes replies, and clicks into a different thread, scrolling through posts. He double-clicks one. “Here you go. That’s him, right?”

And it is. There’s a picture of Realm, not looking at the camera. He’s partially turned away, his scar prominent on his neck. He doesn’t seem to know his picture is being taken, and I’m reminded of Melody and how she never wanted to be in any photos. She always found an excuse. It was probably because she was a handler, a closer, and she didn’t want to be recognized. She didn’t want a record of being Jana Simms.

“That’s definitely him,” I say. Under the picture, the post reads: Anyone know this guy?

Wes goes into the private messages and shows me his exchange with the original poster. It doesn’t give us any information on locating Realm, so we eventually click out and scan the boards again.

There’s a notebook, and Wes grabs it and flips back a few pages, reading through some of the information he copied down. I watch him, completely warmed by his dedication to figuring this all out. Knowing that he’d done it while I was ignoring him.

“It was hard for me to lie to you,” I admit as he reads over a page. He looks sideways at me, setting the notebook down. “It broke my heart,” I add.

“Then you should have told the truth,” he says. “You could have done that all along.”

“I wanted you to be happy,” I say. “And I didn’t think you could be with me.” Wes holds my gaze and then sits back against the couch.

“Don’t I get to decide what makes me happy?” he asks.

I shrug. “If I really loved you, wouldn’t I make sure you were happy?”

Wes scrunches up his face, like he doesn’t buy that theory. “As a point of reference,” he says, “aren’t we here, now, to fight back against an entity who claims exactly that? They’re making decisions for us, claiming it’s in our best interest. Why are they deciding what our interests are? Why did you think you could decide mine?”

“Our track record’s not great,” I say, although I get his point about The Program. How making a relationship decision without his input may not have been entirely fair—not when I still loved him.

“You told me all about it, remember?” Wes says, smiling with those adorable dimples. “We sound awful,” he adds. “We sound young. But other than nearly dying, the second time didn’t seem so bad.”

I laugh, enjoying his take on the situation. “It wasn’t awesome, either, although it had its moments.”

“Seems like our thing,” he says. “Bad timing.”

I loop my arm behind the sofa and set the bag of frozen peas on the cushion. “What do you mean?”

“First round, we had the epidemic, you breaking up with me. Me trying to move on halfheartedly. And then the second time, you loved me first, and when I came around, you decided it was wrong. My head exploded, and boom—we’re up to round three.”

“I mean, it didn’t explode,” I say.

“Do you want my thoughts on all of this?” he asks. “My final thoughts?”

I shake my leg, nervous. “Yes,” I reply, bracing myself for what he’s about to say.

“Whatever went wrong between us,” he starts, “I’m sorry. No matter who was at fault, if anyone. And I can’t promise it won’t happen again. But I’m not going to move on this time.” He smiles, kind of miserable. A bit stubborn.

“I think about you all the time, Tate,” he continues. “I worry about you. I want to live this life.” He motions between us. “And I hope I’m not being too much right now if I say I’m wild about you. Have been since you came to rescue me in the monitor’s office. Since I saw you in class. I knew you”—he puts his hand over his heart—“even if I didn’t know you.