Extraits

“I’ll be right there,” Jello shouts.

“What’s taking so long?” I ask.

“I’m trying to—” I hear her laugh, and then, in a soft, sweet voice clearly directed at someone else: “Aaron, please—I promise I’ll be right back.”

“J?”

“I’m trying to get dressed!”

“Oh.” I try really, really hard not to picture them both, undressed, in bed together, but somehow I can’t fight the image from materializing. “Okay, ew.”

Then: “Sweetheart, how long do you plan on being friends with him?”

J laughs again.

Man, that girl has no clue.

"Call it a wild guess," Warner says.

I ring the doorbell again.

"Coming!" J. Finally.

"She's not coming," Warner shouts. "Go away."

"I'm not going anywhere," I shout back. " I want to talk to Juliette. Ella. Jella. Jello. Whatever."

"Ella, love, please-let me kill him."

I hear J laugh, which is sweet, actually, because it's clear she thinks Warner's joking. Me, on the other hand-I'm pretty sure he's not.

he leans in and whispers something in her ear and I watch, in real time, as her whole face turns red. And then he’s touching her, kissing her here, right in front of everyone and— I turn away sharply.

I definitely wasn’t supposed to see that.

But with Juliette—

Ella?

With her, it’s different. I never even realized just how much I was missing until we really got to know each other. She lets me talk. She doesn’t rush me. She doesn’t tell me to calm down or feed me bullshit lines or tell me everything will be fine. When I’m trying to get things off my chest she doesn’t make the conversation about her or her own problems. She understands. I can tell. She doesn’t have to say a word. I can look into her eyes and know she gets it. She gives a shit about me in a way no one else ever has. It’s the same thing that makes her a great leader: she genuinely cares about people. She cares about their lives.

Even Brendan—kind, compassionate Brendan—shook his head and said, “Adam made his decision. It’s been hard for all of us to lose them, Kenji, but you have to let it go.”

Fuck that.

I didn’t let it go.

I won’t let it go.

I see her before we’ve made it back. Right outside the entrance, backlit by chaos: Juliette.

She’s on her knees, her hands clamped around her temples. Her face is a picture of pure agony, and Warner is crouching beside her, pale and terrified, his hands on her shoulders, shouting something I can’t hear.

God, I miss her.

Sometimes I miss her so much I think my chest is caving in. I feel like I'm sinking in the feeling, like I might never come up for air. And sometimes I think I could just die there, in those moments, violently drowned by emotion.

“I should’ve let you freeze to death in Kent’s old apartment. I should’ve let those rodents devour your carefully preserved carcass. I should’ve—”

“Listen, man, I’m really not trying to—”

“Don’t interrupt me.”

My mouth snaps shut.

He takes a sharp, steady breath. His eyes are like fire. Green. Ice. Fire. In that order. “Why do you do this to me? Why?”

“Um. Okay, I know this will be hard for a narcissist like you to understand, but this has nothing to do with you. J is my friend. In fact, she was my friend first. We were friends long before you ever came around.”

Warner’s eyes widen with outrage. And before he has a chance to speak, I say— “My bad. I’m sorry.” I hold up my hands in apology. “I forgot about the whole memory-wiping thing for a second. But honestly, whatever. As far as my memories are concerned, I knew her first.”

When I open my eyes, I see spiders.

Eyes and arms, eyes and arms, eyes and arms everywhere. Magnified. Up close. A thousand eyes, round and shining. Hundreds of arms reaching toward me, around me.

Someone is shouting. Someones. Wait, what’s the plural of someone? I don’t think I’ve ever heard so many people say my name at the same time. Kenji kenji kenji kenjikenjikenji I try to laugh.