I didn’t say anything. Instead I leaned forward and traced the jagged outline of Mount Whitney with my fingertip.
“This one’s my favorite,” I whispered. “I’d forgotten I set the timer. I didn’t even realize till later that I’d taken it. I’m usually not in my photos.” I looked at myself staring across the horizon, the lake reflecting a mirrored image of the setting sun behind the pine-dotted crags that etched the rocky terrain. Beside me was a shimmery light, a spectacular sunburst of color against the plain gray horizon. I’d always thought it was just a reflection of the sun off the camera lens. Now I knew better.
“I remember.” Finn touched the shimmery shape beside me and smiled.
I looked back and forth from the picture to Finn, trying to fit the two images together, until my fingers found their way to the glass. At least I could touch this.
“Tell me something about you,” he said.
“You already know everything about me.”
“No, I don’t,” he said. “I don’t know what goes on inside your head. I don’t even know what you want to do after high school.”
I glanced at Finn, at the floor, at the pictures. I felt like he was asking me to crack myself open and show him my insides with that one simple question. “I’d like to own a bakery someday. The kind where people can come in and sit at little iron tables and soak in the smell of bread when it’s cold outside.”
The second I allowed myself to think it, the pain started. Dull. Achy. The kind that always accompanies something you want but can never have.
“Why do you say that like you’ll never have it?” he asked.
“Because I won’t,” I admitted, twisting my toe into the floor. “I’ve barely made it though the past two years alive. Why should I expect to have a future to plan for?”
“Hey.” Finn moved so close to me I could feel his warmth on my skin. “You’ll have those things.
You’ll have everything you’ve ever dreamed about wanting. Do you hear me? I’m not going to let anything happen to you. Haven’t I proved that to you by now?”
I shook my head. “No. I can’t keep relying on you. What happens when you can’t be there? I need to know how to protect myself.”
“I…” He looked tortured. Guilty. And for a moment I hated myself for making him feel that way.
“This is all my fault. I’m sorry. You have no idea how sorry I am.”
“Don’t be sorry. Just tell me what to do.”
“I wish I knew. Now that you know…maybe you’d have some kind of chance even if I wasn’t here.”
He didn’t sound like he believed the words coming out of his own mouth.
I held my breath as he reached his hand up to my face. I leaned in, expecting to feel the cold, breathy vapor of his touch, but the sensation never came. By the time I let myself breathe again, he’d already dropped his hand and backed away.
“What’s wrong?” I stepped into him, wanting, needing him to touch me. I was so raw inside from that memory of Dad that I needed this more than I wanted to admit.
“Emma…don’t.”
He said it but he didn’t back away. He just stared at my lips and his chest started to move with unneeded breaths. I stepped closer. So close I could feel his warmth crackling between us like static electricity. “Please?”
The silence between us seemed unending, an ocean of unspoken words stretching on for miles between us. I stared up into bottomless green eyes that seemed to be searching my face. Ever so slowly, I reached for his cheek. Silvery blue sparks ignited in the paper-thin space between my fingertips and his skin.
Before I could touch him, he tripped over his own feet trying to back away from me. “I-I can’t touch you,” he stuttered. “I’m sorry.”
“I know you can touch me.” I didn’t mean for it to sound like an accusation but it did. “You’ve done it before. At the school. I felt you that day. You felt…real. Why not now?”
Finn stabbed his fingers through his hair. “You think I don’t want to touch you? Do you think I wouldn’t give anything…”
“Then do it!” A lump swelled in my throat and I pressed my lips together. Why did I need this so badly? I felt like I was going to break apart if he didn’t give me this. “You don’t get to say you want to touch me, then run away. If you can’t, then you have to tell me why. Why—”
“Because he’ll know!”
“Who?”
He groaned and touched his hip. “I have to go.”
My heart lurched in my chest. “You can’t! Look, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—” I didn’t finish. It wouldn’t have done any good. Finn had disappeared. Again.
Chapter 18
Finn The next afternoon, I seeped into Emma’s house on a gust of cold wind and tried my best to brush the smell of death from my clothes. I went to the kitchen and checked the time on the stove. 3:27. Within minutes, she’d walk through that door and drive this god-awful worry out of my head. I’d been out on reaps all day. A shooting victim. A kid hit by a car. The list went on and on. I didn’t even know if she was okay. If she even knew that I wasn’t there to protect her. I paced around the living room, into the kitchen, and back again. I was about to invade the bedrooms when the front door opened. I braced my hands on the walls on either side of the hall, feeling relieved as I watched her walk in.
“Mom!” Emma tossed her book bag on the counter and pulled open the fridge. “You home?”
She pulled out a bottle of orange juice and twisted it open. I stood still, silent, wanting to watch her for just a moment. Her hair was piled on top of her head like an artfully tangled ball of gold thread.
Loose wispy pieces framed her face. She took a drink of the juice, licked a droplet from her lips, and shoved the sleeves of her white cardigan up to her elbows. “Mom!”
“She’s not here,” I said from the hall.
Emma yelped and grabbed her chest. “You gotta stop doing that.”
“Sorry.”
She smiled and leaned on the counter. “You’re back.”
I grinned back as I walked into the kitchen. God, that smile of hers was infectious. “I always come back.”
“I thought you were mad at me.” Emma put the cap back on her orange juice and stuck it in the fridge. “You know. For the touching thing.”
“I had to go to work.” I looked away. “And I wasn’t mad. I just…you have no idea what that does to me. Watching you practically beg me for something I can’t give you.”
“So you can’t touch me but you can touch that?” She motioned to the banana I was twirling on the counter.
I stared at the counter and frowned, thinking about Balthazar and his threats. She didn’t need to know that. It would just make her feel guilty for my being here. My voice came out rougher than I wanted it to when I said, “This is different.”
“How?”
Emma placed her hand over mine. My skin scattered like a school of twinkling fish before pulling back together. I watched the colors of our skin meld then separate, feeling a jolt of connection race up my arm. This was the problem. When I was with Emma…nothing else mattered. The lines disappeared. I could barely remember the rules I was supposed to be following. It was taking everything in me not to force my skin into existence and lace my fingers through hers for real. I could barely keep myself together like this, knowing she wanted me to touch her. I pulled my hand away.
“The universe has boundaries. Touching a human, like really touching, is one of those boundaries.
If I gave in and crossed that boundary, it would send off a signal. I wouldn’t be able to hide it. I may have the ability, but I’m not supposed to use it.”