But Alice did, and I will, too, if I don’t stand beneath the total eclipse.
Mr. Hart is clearly building toward something, but the bus goes over a speed bump, and the small hotel comes into view. I close the book and put it back into my bag, knowing I’ll read the rest after dinner tonight.
I grab my duffel and file into the lobby with everyone else. Sang is in the corner, talking with Mr. Burrows, and I look away as soon as I see him. The way my insides stir, knowing we’ll both be in this hotel tonight and can’t be together, sends heat directly to my face, and I turn around so he won’t see.
It’s more than that though. More than desire. It’s also that I want to tell him about Mr. Hart’s logbook and hear about his research and tangle our magic together again. It’s that I want to hear him breathe and listen to the sound of his voice and be in comfortable silence with him. It’s all of those things.
It’s all of him.
I shake my head and turn my attention to Mr. Donovan, who’s handing out room assignments. There’s an odd number of summers and winters, and I end up in a room with Paige.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” she says, and I have to agree.
Mr. Donovan looks embarrassed, which only makes it worse. “Will this be okay? I’m not sure how you two ended up together. I can see if someone’s willing to switch,” he says.
“It’s fine,” I say. It’s only one night.
“No lightning strikes, then, agreed?” His tone is easy and light, but it still makes my stomach drop to the floor.
“Agreed,” we both say.
I take the key and haul my duffel up a flight of stairs to the second floor. Paige comes in a few minutes later and throws her bag on the unclaimed bed.
We’re quiet for a few minutes. “How’s Sang?” she asks, her voice filling the silence. The words are stiff coming from her mouth, but she was there when he was hurt. She wants to know that he’s okay.
“I’m not sure,” I admit. I pause, then say, “We’re not together anymore.”
She gives me a disbelieving look. “You’re not together anymore,” she repeats in a mean tone.
“What?”
“Let me guess—you broke up with him after the ring of fire.” She’s shaking her head, and it automatically makes me defensive.
“I had to,” I say. “You saw the way my magic went after him. It was the only way to keep him safe.”
“And how did he react to that?”
“Not very well,” I say. “He thought he should have a say in it.”
“Which he should have,” she says, her voice sharp. That’s when I realize she’s speaking not just for Sang, but for herself.
When I don’t say anything, she continues, “It takes a lot to trust someone in that way, and to have your control taken from you like that—it’s a really shitty thing to do to someone. It’s supposed to be a partnership.”
I stare at her, incredulous. “It’s hard to have a partnership when one person is dead,” I say.
“Did it ever occur to you to try to solve the problem together? Maybe you don’t use your magic when you’re with him. Maybe you never work on the same storm cell. There are ways around it.” Her voice rises as she speaks, fighting with me, making up for her silence when I ended things with her.
“You know as well as I do that magic is unpredictable and can arise when you least expect it.”
“I’m not saying it can’t. I just don’t believe that walking away makes you brave or selfless or some kind martyr the way you think it does.” Her gaze locks on mine. “I think it makes you selfish, defeatist, and weak.”
I’m stunned by her words, so heavy and full they take up space between us. Her jaw tenses, and she keeps her eyes on mine, daring me to say something.
I look away and swallow hard, fight the sting that burns my eyes.
“See?” she practically shouts, throwing her hands in the air. “You won’t even fight for the things you care about.”
I hear what she’s really saying, as cold and clear as a winter morning.
You won’t even fight for me.
You won’t even fight for Sang.
She walks out of the room, and the door slams shut behind her.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
“Not all love is meant to last, but that does not mean it’s not remarkable.”
—A Season for Everything
Paige doesn’t come back to our room after dinner. I take a long shower, put on sweats, and crawl into bed with Mr. Hart’s logbook.
Her words have stayed with me, swirling in my mind like a cyclone, threatening to damage everything they touch. You won’t even fight for the things you care about.
I thought that’s what I was doing by training with Sang and throwing myself into my magic and telling Ms. Suntile about our discovery. I thought that’s what I was doing when the tornado hit our school and when Mr. Burrows stranded me in the middle of nowhere and when a blizzard landed on our campus.
Even kissing Sang, dancing with him under the stars, laughing with him so hard I cried—that was fighting too. Fighting for myself, choosing to believe I deserve more than a life of isolation and fear.
Choosing to hope.
I put my trust in myself and my magic, hoped so badly that I’d finally learned to control it, and I ended up devastated. That’s what happens when you let yourself hope. It crushes you like an avalanche, cold and heavy and suffocating.
Walking away from people I care about is fighting for them. It’s fighting to keep them safe.
I open Mr. Hart’s logbook. My argument with Paige recedes into the background as I get further in, following along as best I can as Mr. Hart explores different theories and explanations as to why my magic hurts people.
He doesn’t know why, only that
