Mate (Bride, #2) (124)

I freeze. Did she just say . . . ?

“Yup, I know. And I will be reminding you that I know every day for the rest of your natural life. Which, as it turns out, you thought was going to end soon? Not that I would have known if other people hadn’t told me.”

Shit. Shit, shit. This is bad. “It turned out to be nothing. And the Heat, I would have told you the second I came back to live in the Southwest. And

— ”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Well, you should, because— ”

“No, Serena, I’m talking. Remember when you didn’t tell me you were a Were? And we agreed that you should have? Clearly you learned nothing.

You acted selfishly again. And you know what? I’m sick of this. I’m sick of you shouldering everything like you’re the fucking guy with the stone.”

“Sisyphus?”

“No— the other guy.”

“King Arthur?”

“No, the asshole who carries the planet.”

“Atlas!”

“Yes!” Her victorious smile mirrors mine. Then she remembers herself, and her expression becomes disheartened. “Serena, I can’t keep wondering

what you’re not telling me. I can’t keep finding out that you’re facing enormous problems alone.”

“Misery, it’s not . . .” I have no right to cry. So I try very hard not to. “I just don’t want you to have to worry— ”

“I worry anyway. I worry more, because I don’t know whether you’ll reach out to me when you’re in need. Listen, you’ve seen me stuff my bra with math homework. I’ve seen you with your eyebrows shaved. There’s no dignity left between us. We’ve been with each other at our worst— ”

“And now you are at your best,” I blurt out. “And I don’t want to drag you back down with me.”

It’s what I feel. Really. Genuinely. I didn’t fully know it until the words slipped out, and now I’m looking at Misery, my beautiful, beloved sister, and the hurt in her eyes makes me want to step off a cliff.

“Is that what you think?” she whispers. “That I’m too . . . too functioning for you? That I wouldn’t want to be with you because . . .”

“It’s just . . . ,” I start. But anything I can think of saying feels so profoundly myopic. “You have many people who love you now. You’re not alone anymore. And I want you to be able to enjoy it without having to worry about your loser hybrid unemployed maybe-terminal friend who now has weird mating cycles and is a liability for everyone because of the undiagnosed narcissism in her family tree.” I wipe my cheek with the back of my hand. And Misery is silent for so long, I wonder if this is it.

She’s had enough.

But then she says, “I’m not. At my best. And I . . . I feel alone and insecure and lost all the time. I wonder whether people’s lives are worse because of me all the time. Having a Vampyre mate doesn’t buy Lowe any favors. And Ana? I have this fucking child who looks at me like I’m a role model. Serena, she’s so fucking small, basically held together with spit and duct tape, and one of these days she’s going to join a biker gang or ask me how children are made— ”

“You’re probably good for a while.”

“— and I’m ruining her, because I forget that I’m not supposed to swear around her. And some classmates at school have been making fun of her for not being able to shift— ”

“What?” I pull back the sheets and jump to my feet. “Those cunts!”

“I know!” She shoots up, too. “Can you believe that Juno won’t let me go suck their fucking pets dry in front of their fucking useless eyes?”

“I can, actually. The pets did nothing wrong. But we could shank the classmates themselves— ”

“Juno forbade that, too! No violence against minors,” she singsongs, in the worst imitation of Juno I’ve had the pleasure to witness. I’m still pondering avenues for revenge, but Misery continues. “It sucks. I constantly feel like I’m not equipped for this. And the reason it hurts so much is that . .

. I want to be. I adore her. But would she be better off if I went away? And Lowe, his life would be so much easier with a Were mate. I should leave him, right? But I love him so much. Almost as much as he loves me.”

I laugh, and some gross snot comes out.

“But, Serena, the thing about Ana and Lowe and Juno and every other person I’ll meet for the rest of my life is . . . they’re not you. They don’t get it. They’re never going to get it.” I think— I know that if she could cry, she would. I certainly am. “Just like Koen or Amanda are never going to get it.

They’ll get other things. They’ll get other moments— they’ll get their own exclusives. But they won’t get this.”

What a shameless abuse of the verb “to get.” And yet. “I can’t believe I know exactly what you mean.”

“It’s because you— ”

“Get it. Yes.”

Two normal friends would exchange a hug. We just sit back in our respective places and stare at each other, fondly amused by our very own idiocy. “Ribbit,” the frog says, and we both nod in agreement.