“I’ll do it to you too, if you want.”
Cassandra shook her head, not quite sure who she was shaking it at. The heat in the room lingered, but wasn’t radiating off Aidan like it had when he’d grabbed Andie. Still, he seemed taller and more beautiful. More of a god.
“Don’t jump to my defense.” Andie sat up and wiped her eyes. She gently pulled free from Cassandra. “I’m not your wife. I’m not Andromache. It’s gross.”
“That’s not why I did it.” Henry’s legs twitched, like he couldn’t decide whether to pace or storm out. He ended up doing nothing.
“What are we going to do?” Andie wiped her eyes again and sucked in a hitching breath. “Go home, pack our bags, leave notes saying we’re headed to California? What about my mom?”
Henry sat down heavily. “I can’t believe this. Cassie, she’s right, we can’t both go. What about Mom and Dad?”
“There’s nothing we could tell them that they’d understand. But we’ll come back.”
“Maybe they don’t want us. Maybe they just want you.” She said the words, but Andie’s voice held no hope. Cassandra couldn’t let them stay. She couldn’t leave them behind to have their necks snapped.
“We’ll come back.”
“We should probably tell Athena.” Aidan stood apart from them, near the door, arms crossed.
“No. It’ll slow us down. And besides, I don’t trust them.”
He nodded, staring at the carpet. “I’ve got to go back to my house. Get my bag again. Rewrite the note.”
“We’ll meet back here in an hour, okay, Andie?”
An hour. Not much time. Certainly not enough to say good-byes, or to do anything that they’d have liked to do one more time in the city they grew up in. Andie got up and walked out the door. Henry and Lux followed behind. After they’d gone, Cassandra reached under her bed for her duffel bag and started to fill it with clothes from her dresser.
“Do you think Andie’ll come back?” Aidan asked. “She was pretty upset. Maybe I shouldn’t have done what I did.”
“No, you were right about that,” Cassandra said. She pushed past him to get into her closet and yanked shirts and jeans off plastic hangers. “Even if you were wrong about everything else.” In the corner of her eye she saw his shoulders slump. He hadn’t touched her since she’d brushed him away near the deadfall. But he wanted to. And angry as she was, part of her wanted to let him.
“Cassandra, I’m sorry.”
“About what exactly? About the fact that we’re all probably going to die because gods can’t stand the thought of going quietly? They’ve been around forever. Isn’t that long enough?”
“It’s not easy for them. You don’t really understand … anything about forever. About what that word really means.”
She rolled a sweater up and stuffed it into her bag. “I guess I don’t. I’m just a human. I just live. And die. Nothing I do is eternal.” She threw makeup and moisturizer into the bag. She wanted to throw them against the wall. Makeup and moisturizer. Ridiculous.
“Why did you come here? Why did you find me?”
“Because I never stopped loving you.”
“That’s a selfish reason.” She went to her dresser, opened drawers, and slammed them shut. “You made me feel things I shouldn’t feel. And I can’t make them go away just like that. Yesterday I loved you. Now it’s all over. Except it’s not. It’s still in here.” She struck her chest with her fist. Her heart burned. It needed to be torn out.
“A thousand times I opened my mouth to tell you.”
“To tell me what?”
“Everything. Who you were. Who I was. What I’d done. But then I’d look at you. And I knew no matter what I did, I would lose you anyway. To death, or disease, or a fucking car accident. I’ve felt your heartbeat, and it’s so delicate it makes me ache. It paralyzed me, how different we are, and in the end I was a coward. But I’ve loved you a thousand years, and another thousand.”
“You asshole.” She stopped angrily packing and threw her bag on the bed. A thousand years and another thousand. That’s how long he’d spent loving the girl he’d gotten murdered. “You made me love you more than I did before. Knowing what you did. It’s a violation.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“There’s nothing you can do. You can’t make it like it was before. Neither of us can. No matter how much I want you to.” Everything was hard now, and cold, but it was a million times harder without him. “You should go. Get your stuff. Get out money for us.”
He nodded and turned, then stopped with his hand on the doorknob. “I came here to make sure you had the life you should have had if not for me. But I couldn’t. I wish I could take it all back. Or make this go away.”
Downstairs, the door opened and Lux barked and ran down to the entryway. Cassandra froze, listening to her parents talk to the dog and stomp their feet on the rug. Grocery bags crinkled and clinked down on the countertop, filled with aluminum cans and cardboard and bundles of vegetables.
“Cassandra!” her mother called. “Henry! Come help with the groceries!”
Cassandra threw her duffel into the closet like they might see it from downstairs. They were home. Her mom and dad.
“I thought we’d be gone before they got back. That there wouldn’t be any choice. We just wouldn’t have been able to say good-bye.”
Her knees felt like water. Aidan grasped her arms and held her up.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I’ll go. I’ll help them. You stay here.”
“No,” she said. “I want to.” She couldn’t decide if she felt like crying or throwing up. “Aidan. I don’t know if I can do this.”
He pulled her close and held her.
19
THE THINGS YOU CAN’T SEE COMING
Nobody looked back until the lights of Kincade were far behind, an orange glow thrown up into the black sky as the Mustang flew down the highway. It was close to four in the morning. The road was empty except for a few scattered semitrucks. They’d waited until Cassandra’s parents were asleep to leave. Then they’d waited longer, dragging their feet until Aidan finally grabbed their bags and took them silently to the car. Henry was the last to come. He’d knelt on the front steps with his dog, scratching his ears and whispering. Then he’d locked Lux up inside and helped Aidan push the Mustang down the driveway and along the road until they were far enough away to start the engine.
“Is anybody hungry?” Aidan asked from behind the wheel. He’d suggested he drive, since he wouldn’t get tired, but any of them could have done it. Cassandra had never felt more awake in her life. “We could stop at the travel plaza and get something from the gas station. Some chips or soda or something.”
“We’ve got a full tank. Let’s wait.” Cassandra glanced over her shoulder. “Andie, I’m sorry I snapped at you earlier.”
“It’s okay. I’m sorry for—you know—being myself.” She shrugged, her face pale and washed out. She was okay for the moment. They all were. But sooner or later it would get bad. Sooner or later they’d realize what they’d left behind, that their lives had been severed and they couldn’t go back.
“Aidan, do you even need to eat?” Andie asked. “I mean, you eat all the time, but do you need to? You don’t get tired, so do you need to sleep?”
