The Host (The Host #1)(212)

Before the rain, every space was taken, so I stayed with Doc in the hospital that no longer frightened me. The cots were not comfortable, but it was a very interesting place to be. Candy remembered the details of Summer Song’s life better than her own; the hospital was a place of miracles now.

After the rain, Doc would not be sleeping in the hospital anymore. The first night in the game room, Sharon had dragged her mattress right next to Doc’s without a word of explanation. Perhaps it was Doc’s fascination with the Healer that motivated Sharon, though I doubted Doc had even noticed how pretty the older woman was; his fascination was with her phenomenal knowledge. Or maybe it was just that Sharon was ready to forgive and forget. I hoped that was the case. It would be nice to think that even Sharon and Maggie might be softened over time.

I would not stay in the hospital anymore, either.

The crucial conversation with Ian might never have taken place if not for Jamie. My mouth would go all dry and my palms would sweat whenever I so much as thought of bringing it up. What if those feelings in the hospital, those few perfect moments of certainty right after I’d awoken in this body, had been illusion? What if I remembered them wrong? I knew that nothing had changed for me, but how could I be certain Ian felt the same? The body he’d fallen in love with was still right here!

I expected him to be unsettled—we all were. If it was difficult for me, a soul used to such changes, how hard must it be for the humans?

I was working to put the last of the jealousy and the perplexing echoes of the love I still felt for Jared behind me. I didn’t need or want them. Ian was the right partner for me. But sometimes I would catch myself staring at Jared and feel confused. I’d seen Melanie touch Ian’s arm or hand and then jerk away as if she’d suddenly remembered who she was. Even Jared, who had the least reason for uncertainty, would occasionally meet my confused gaze with a searching one of his own. And Ian… Of course it must have been hardest for him. I understood that.

We were together nearly as much as Kyle and Sunny. Ian constantly touched my face and hair, was always holding my hands. But who did not respond to this body that way? And wasn’t it platonic for everyone else? Why didn’t he kiss me again, the way he had that first day?

Maybe he could never love me inside this body, as appealing as it seemed to be to all the other humans here.

That worry was heavy in my heart the night Ian had carried my cot—because it was too heavy for me—to the big, dark game room.

It was raining for the first time in more than six months. There were both laughter and complaints as people shook out their damp bedding and arranged their places. I saw Sharon with Doc and smiled.

“Over here, Wanda,” Jamie called, waving me toward where he’d just set his mattress next to Ian’s. “There’s room for all three of us now.”

Jamie was the one person who treated me almost exactly the same as before. He did make allowances for my puny physique, but he never seemed surprised to see me enter a room or shocked when Wanderer’s words came through these lips.

“You don’t really want that cot, do you, Wanda? I’ll bet we could all fit okay on the mattresses if we shoved them together.” Jamie grinned at me while he kicked one mattress into the other without waiting for agreement. “You don’t take up much space.”

He took the cot from Ian and set it on its side, out of the way. Then Jamie stretched out on the very edge of the far mattress and turned his back to us.

“Oh, hey, Ian,” he added without turning. “I talked to Brandt and Aaron, and I think I’m going to move in with them. Well, I’m beat. Night, guys.”

I stared at Jamie’s unmoving form for a long moment. Ian was just as motionless. He couldn’t have been having a panic attack, too, though. Was he thinking of some way to extricate himself from the situation?

“Lights out,” Jeb bellowed from across the room. “Everybody shut yer trap so I can get some shut-eye.”

People laughed, but took him seriously as always. One by one, the four lamps were dimmed until the room was black.

Ian’s hand found mine; it was warm. Did he notice how cold and sweaty my skin was?

He sank to his knees on the mattress, tugging me gently along. I followed and lay down on the seam between the beds. He kept my hand.

“Is this okay?” Ian whispered. There were other hushed conversations going on around us, made indistinct by the rush of the sulfur spring.

“Yes, thank you,” I answered.

Jamie rolled over, shaking the mattress and knocking into me. “Oops, sorry, Wanda,” he murmured, and then I heard him yawn.

Automatically, I shifted out of his way. Ian was closer than I’d thought. I gasped quietly when I ran into him, then tried to give him some room. His arm was suddenly around me, holding me to his body.

It was the strangest feeling; having Ian’s arm around me in this very nonplatonic way reminded me oddly of my first experience with No Pain. Like I’d been in agony without realizing it, and his touch had taken all the hurt away.

That feeling erased my shyness. I rolled so that I was facing him, and he tightened his arm around me.

“Is this okay?” I whispered, repeating his question.

He kissed my forehead. “Better than okay.”

We were silent for a few minutes. Most of the other conversations had died out.

He bent down so that his lips were at my ear and whispered, quieter than before, “Wanda, do you think… ?” He fell silent.