Elegy (20 page)

Jillian didn’t say anything else, either, choosing instead to flop unceremoniously onto her bed. Just before she clicked off her bedside lamp, however, she whispered, “So I guess I’ll take your silence as a yes?”

I could make no other reply but to smack her with my pillow again.

Chapter
TWENTY-FOUR

D
amn Jillian and her stupid perceptiveness.

That was the only rational thought I could muster when, around two a.m., I finally gave in to my impulses and snuck from Jillian’s room toward Joshua’s. I wavered at his door, unsure of how best to enter. Knocking seemed too formal, too unlike
us
. But barging in at two in the morning and demanding that he kiss me again seemed way too crazy.

Fortunately, Joshua solved my dilemma for me. I was still standing outside his room, contemplating my first move, when he swung his door open, grabbed me to pull me inside, and then began kissing me fiercely as he shut the door behind us.

“I heard you coming over,” he murmured in between our kisses, by way of an explanation.

“I just wasn’t sure about our last night . . . I didn’t want to waste . . .”

I couldn’t get the thought out, partly because it was so difficult and partly because I couldn’t really think straight with him this close to me. Finally, I placed one hand on his chest and pushed him away, just long enough to release a few, painful words.

“If it’s my last night on earth,” I whispered, “I want it to be with you. No one else but you.”

Joshua pressed his forehead to mine and nodded, squeezing my upper arm tightly but not painfully. After taking a few moments to compose himself, Joshua nodded again and whispered, “Let’s go outside. To the gazebo.”

I blinked back, not sure about the wisdom of that suggestion. After all, the family had only gone to bed a few hours ago, and they might hear us exit the back door. Besides, it was probably cold outside. But, assuming Joshua had his reasons for asking, I slipped my hand into his and let him lead me.

Outside, I discovered that I was right: it
was
chilly. I began to shiver as we walked from the back porch to the gazebo, and Joshua released my hand so that he could wrap his arm around me for warmth. Then, with his free hand, he pulled back the heavy curtains that covered the gazebo’s entrance to reveal the biggest surprise of the night.

Inside, the hanging lanterns glittered like stars—Joshua must have lit them all, because the entire room sparkled with their soft light. I didn’t know how he’d done it, but most of the plants within the gazebo were now blooming, too: white petals brightened dark corners, scented the air, fell delicately around the daybed, which Joshua had pushed against the far wall.

In the center of the gazebo, underneath the largest lantern, a wide stretch of wooden floor now lay bare. As Joshua guided me out to its center, I finally recognized the open space for what it was: a makeshift dance floor.

Joshua pulled me to him and, after a few still seconds, began to sway with me at the center of the gazebo. There was no music—we couldn’t play anything, unless we wanted to risk waking his family—but that didn’t seem to matter. We moved together for a long time, holding each other tightly, not wanting to allow even an inch between us. Eventually, I pressed my hand gently to the nape of his neck to draw his mouth to mine.

When the kiss ended, I leaned back and laughed slightly, running my fingers along his jawline.

“What’s so funny?” he asked, smiling faintly.

“I just had a weird thought.”

“And what was that?”

“I wondered whether you missed them,” I said softly. “Our sparks.”

He turned his head to kiss my fingertips and then gave me a smile that was equal parts tender and playful. “I wouldn’t say the sparks are gone, Amelia. At least, not for me.”

My laughter was low and rough. I led him to kiss me again and again, until I lost count. I didn’t know how long we stayed like that, dancing and kissing under the artificial stars. But after an indeterminate amount of time, I noticed that our circles had grown wider until we stood next to the daybed.

When he noticed this, too, Joshua hesitated. But I didn’t. I slipped my hands beneath his shirt, sliding it up over his chest. Despite the chill in the gazebo, Joshua helped me completely remove his shirt. Then he allowed me to pull him gently onto the daybed with me. There, he lay close enough to me that I knew neither of us would feel the cold for much longer.

The sight of him there, on that bed with me, made something wild unleash itself within me. Before I knew what had happened, my kisses grew feverish and I began to guide Joshua’s hands to the hem of my shirt. I felt him take the edge of it between his fingers, but then he froze. He pulled his mouth away from mine, frowning heavily.

“Amelia, I can’t . . . ,” Joshua whispered, shaking his head.

A sliver of ice cut its way through my heart.

“You can’t what?” I whispered back, fighting the tears that threatened to spill. “You can’t be with me on our last night together?”

He faltered, about to say something different, and then shook his head dejectedly.

“No, I can’t.”

“You don’t want me,” I concluded. Now I didn’t even try to fight my tears.

“Of course I do.” Still shaking his head a little, Joshua pressed his forehead to mine. “I just know that if we do this, we can’t take it back.
I
can’t take it back. I’d live the rest of my life with this memory of you, with this part of you in my heart, and I can’t live with . . . I don’t know how I’ll . . .”

His voice finally broke, and he turned away from me so that I couldn’t see his eyes. I smiled, sad and soft, and then reached up to cup his face in my hands, carefully turning it so that I could look straight into those perfect, midnight-blue eyes.

“I thought you knew the truth about us, Joshua. But I can see now that you don’t. So I’ll tell you: it’s
you
who’s been haunting
me
, since the moment I first saw you. No matter what we do or don’t do tonight, no matter where I go tomorrow, I won’t stop letting you haunt me. And I can’t imagine a better fate than that.”

“Amelia, I don’t mean—,” Joshua began, but I cut him off.

“Wait. There’s something else I want to say. I . . . I think we both know that I won’t be here Sunday. It rips my heart out to do this, but I have to: we both deserve to hear—and say—the truth. And you . . .” I paused, still smiling although I’d started to cry a little again. “You deserve a long life. A
perfect
life. One that you live for the both of us. Because, no matter what, we’ll see each other again—I know we will. So when you’re a hundred and five and fully satisfied with your life
and
you still love me, you can come find me then, okay?”

While I spoke, Joshua studied me intently. I assumed that he would argue with me when I’d finished, or even fall apart. Instead, he pulled me tightly against him and whispered, “I love you, Amelia. I always will.”

I wrapped my fingers in his black hair and closed my eyes, forcing out what tears remained. “I love you, too, Joshua. Always.”

And that was how we spent the rest of the night: wrapped together, no longer speaking. Only once more did we kiss: a soft, tender press of the lips at dawn, before I had to sneak back up to Jillian’s room. Lingering there, with my mouth on his, I couldn’t shut out my one, brutally insistent thought:

This was the first of our last kisses.

Chapter
TWENTY-FIVE

A
t breakfast with his family Saturday morning, Joshua and I shared very few words. But beneath the table, we held hands tightly. So tightly that my fingers ached.

Luckily, Rebecca was in too much of a hurry to get to work and fill the florist’s orders for prom corsages to notice our odd behavior. Jillian, however, saw right through us; she obviously saw our drawn expressions and the way we desperately clung to each other. So when Joshua announced that he was going to run an errand with his cousins (without revealing that they were actually picking up a beer keg to lure the non-Seer recruits out of their prom tonight), Jillian insisted that she and I hang back and “plan.”

Before leaving the table, Joshua flashed me a wary, questioning look. But a barked order from Jillian and a small, reassuring nod from me sent him on his way.

Jillian waited until Rebecca and Jeremiah left the kitchen, too, before turning on me. For a long while, she didn’t say anything—just scrutinized my pale features and uncomfortable fidgeting. Then, finally, she cleared her throat as though what she was about to say might bring her pain.

“You know, it wouldn’t be so bad.”

“What wouldn’t be, Jill?” I asked in a jagged, uneven voice.

“Having you as a guardian angel.”

The sentiment touched me more than I could possibly tell her. But I also knew that sharing deep emotion wasn’t really Jillian’s style. Not for very long. So I forced a deliberate smirk.

“Whatever. Like I’m going to waste my valuable harp-strumming time to watch you and Scott make out.”

Jillian laughed slightly, but after a long pause, she frowned and shook her head.

“I know, Amelia,” she said softly.

I tilted my head to one side and arched my eyebrow. “You know what, Jill?”

“That you aren’t planning on joining the light. At least, not right away.”

I felt goose bumps crawl their way up my arms. I hadn’t admitted that part to anyone—I’d been planning
with
the Seers, and also secretly
around
them, but I hadn’t actually said aloud how I really wanted the battle to occur tonight. How I really wanted to end my existence.

“How do you know that?” I breathed.

Jillian’s right shoulder rose and fell in a despondent little shrug. “Because that’s how you’ve always operated, especially when it comes to my brother. You’ve tried to sacrifice yourself multiple times to keep him safe. And I know you won’t rest peacefully while that bridge still exists.”

I swallowed roughly, once again taken aback by how perceptive Jillian really was sometimes.

“Yeah, and?” I countered, without much conviction.

“And I think you’re trying to make a bargain with one, or both, sides: light and dark. I don’t really have anything specific to go off of—this is all just speculation. But I think you’re going to try and offer the darkness something so that they’ll consider leaving us alone.”

Her words hung heavy in the air between us, waiting. I supposed my ultimate lack of response was answer enough, because Jillian sighed heavily. She’d figured me out before I’d even fully figured out myself.

And so had Joshua, I realized. That was why he’d rejected me the night before—why he seemed even more dejected this morning. Of
course
he would put all the disparate pieces of the puzzle together. He knew me better than Jillian; better, perhaps, than I knew myself.

“So,” Jillian said, interrupting my thoughts, “the real question is, what do I need to do to help you?”

I blinked back, surprised that Jillian wasn’t trying to talk me out of my plan, however half-baked and incomplete it still was. But . . . I guess it made a dark sort of sense: Jillian knew I wouldn’t change my mind, and she also knew this was the only way that she and Joshua—and her family and friends, for that matter—had a fighting chance of survival. She understood that if I could find a way to outsmart the dark, then her family would be safe.

I folded my hands on the kitchen tabletop between us and stared down at them for a minute before speaking quietly.

“There is one thing you can do for me, Jill.”

“Anything, Amelia. Name it.”

I closed my eyes and lowered my head.

“Jillian, there’s going to come a point tonight when I might ask you to kill me. I need you to promise that you’ll do it.”

Jillian stayed silent for far too long. Then she shocked me by taking my hands in hers and giving them a tight squeeze—our first real touch. My eyes shot open to meet hers, which were suddenly filled with tears.

“Okay,” she whispered, although we were the only two people in the kitchen. “When the time comes, I’ll kill you.”