Dee stared at Nuala's fingers on my collar and the way my whole body was sort of leaning toward Nuala's, and her eyebrows drew together a little.
'Yeah,' Dee said. 'Yeah, you don't have to tell me.' Her eyes drifted across Megan and her two opened boxes of food, Eric and his guitar leaning against the wall, Paul and his round eyes, Nuala and her fingers on my neck, and finally to me. I knew how it looked. It looked like I was doing okay without her. It looked like I was sitting here with my friends laughing and eating take-out, totally okay with the way things were going. It looked like Nuala was sitting on the arm of my chair and that she was crazy about me and that we were a couple.
As Campbell said: 'It might not be amazing it might not be shocking, it might not be scandalizing, but I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt: It is real. For that, I am deeply sorry?
It was real. I was okay.
And I was deeply sorry.
Because I'd thought it would feel amazing to turn the tables on
Dee, but it didn't. I saw the expression on her face--or maybe the careful lack of expression--and I recognized it from my own, too many times before.
She mumbled some sort of line to get herself out of there, and even though I was sorry, it wasn't enough to make me go after her. Not because of Nuala. I felt certain that even though Nuala hated her, she wouldn't have stopped me from going after Dee and softening the blow.
But I was done softening the blow for Dee. When had she ever done the same for me? I was done.
I felt like kissing Nuala, for setting me free.
I had taken over the world's most comfortable chairs, as James called them, as my personal kingdom. I was thinking about going out, to fulfill my promise to James to find out exactly what was going on around here, but a little before midnight, James snuck down to see me. He was barefoot, almost soundless, looking really cute in his T-shirt and sweatpants. I got up out of the chair to meet him halfway across the lobby, and closer, I could see that he not only looked really cute, he also looked really exhausted. Big bags under his eyes. I couldn't remember the last time he'd slept, now that I thought about it.
'Hi, crazy,' he said, a little awkward now that we weren't trying to kill each other.
I stood there with my hands by my sides. 'Hi, asshole.'
And then we kissed. Not a crazy kiss, just a soft, tired touching of our lips together because we could. It felt weird, like we were two different people from the people we'd been earlier that day, when I'd been a badass director for the first time ever or when James had been biting my lip in front of his nongirlfriend. Not bad, just weird. For some reason, I hadn't thought James was capable of this brand of kissing.
Without any discussion, we climbed into one of the big plush chairs and curled up together, the pounding of his heart slow and comforting under my ear.
I heard his thoughts. He was thinking about asking me what are we doing? And he was thinking about Halloween, so close. And then he was remembering that I could hear his thoughts and was feeling guilty because he hadn't meant to remind me of how few days I had left.
Like I could forget.
'You were wicked at the rehearsal,' James whispered, to keep from thinking about the end of the month.
'I know.'
His words were muffled in my hair. 'I know it wasn't directing the big screen or anything...'
'Shut up.' I didn't know why, but I didn't want to talk about being really happy anymore than I wanted to talk about
Halloween.
His feelings were hurt. His thoughts drifted over the worry stone and how he'd wanted Ballad to be a gift for me, but he didn't say anything. James would never let on that something hurt him.
'Shut up,' I said again, even though he hadn't said anything out loud. I had to work hard to make my voice seem normal. For some reason, my throat felt all gloppy and hard to talk past when I thought of what I was going to say. 'You know I loved it.
You just want me to buff your ego a little more.'
James seized on that. 'That's exactly it. I just wanted to hear you tell me how wonderful I was. You're so intuitive, it's like you're reading my mind.'
I pinched him. 'You are such a jerk.'
James made a little mmm-mmm noise like he was flattered.
He didn't say anything else, and neither did I, so we were just a knot together, eyes closed, listening to our breathing slowing down. Beauty and the Beast. Well, more like Beast and the Beast.
I didn't mean to fall asleep. I mean, except for that one other time, I had never slept in my life. I had known what words like fatigued and bored meant, but never sleepy or tired or aching with exhaustion. Not until now. Not until Halloween was just days away and I hadn't made any deals for months and my body wanted to give up on me. I'd meant to keep my word to
James and find out tonight what the faeries were doing here.
Or more specifically, what the students had to do with it.
But I slept. For three hours and twenty seven minutes.
It scared me to be tired. It made me think that I could close my eyes one of these nights and not open them again. And then-nothing. That's what they always said--faeries didn't have souls.
While I was sleeping, James had curled himself up tightly away from me, his hands fisted for his savage battle with sleep. His posture now let me slip slowly away without waking him, out of the chair and out of my body. In the moment I became invisible, I saw crisp, dry leaves scuttle across the floor and goose bumps shiver across James' skin.
I used to love seeing the swirl of leaves that accompanied my change of forms. Freedom. Floating on thoughts. Used to be, when I changed, that there were flowers and green summer leaves. Then the flowers were replaced with berries and seed pods and the leaves were yellow, then red. Now dry, old, dead leaves. No flowers. No seed pods.
I flew out of the dorm, over the hills, looking for the things I'd always avoided: other faeries.
I yawned. I was tired again already.
