“No, I’m making fun of you because you don’t seem to understand that we need to take care of each other,” I tell him, backing up a few feet because I just can’t be near him right now. “That sometimes I need help—”
“I know that—”
“Oh, I know you know that. You’re super impressive at reminding me of all the things I can’t do, of all the ways I’m weaker than you.” I pause, my voice breaking. “Of all the ways my opinion doesn’t matter to you.”
“I’ve never said that.” Jaxon staggers a little bit as he tries to close the distance between us. “You know I ask your opinion all the time.”
“That’s just it,” I tell him. “You don’t. You tell me what you think. I try to tell you what I think. And then you do what you want to do anyway. Maybe it doesn’t happen that way all the time, but it happens that way at least eighty percent of the time.
“You don’t tell me something because you’re afraid it will worry or hurt me. You don’t listen to me, because you don’t think I’ll understand. You always want to solve a problem for me, because the frail human can’t survive having to do it herself.”
“What’s wrong with wanting to take care of my girlfriend?” he growls. “I lost you for four months. What’s wrong with me trying to make sure nothing else happens to you—”
“Because you didn’t lose me. I saved you, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“By nearly dying,” he shoots back, and he looks anguished, his face contorted, his hands clenched into fists. “Do you know what that felt like? To stand there in that hallway with you turned to stone, completely out of my reach, and to know it happened because I didn’t protect you well enough? To know that you nearly died in the tunnels, because I was na?ve enough to drink that damn tea from Lia? To know that you were stuck with my brother for three and a half months because I couldn’t reach you, couldn’t—”
“Save me?” I finish his thought for him. “That’s the whole point. It’s not your job to save me. Maybe it’s our job to save each other. But you’re never going to give me that chance. Because in your head, I’m still the frail little human who came to Katmere Academy back in November.”
“You are human. You are—”
“No!” I tell him, and this time I get right up in his face to say it. “I’m not human. Or at least, I’m not only human. I’m a gargoyle, and I can do a lot of cool shit. Maybe I can’t shake the earth like you can, but I can turn you to stone right now if I wanted to. I can fly as high as you. And I can take a hell of a beating and keep coming.”
“I know that,” Jaxon tells me.
“Do you?” I ask. “Do you really? Because you say you love me, and I believe you do. But I don’t think you respect me. Not like an equal. Not like I need to be respected. If you did, you wouldn’t have just ignored me when I told you I thought it was a bad idea to go after the Unkillable Beast.”
“That’s not fair, Grace. I still stand by my opinion that letting Hudson into the world with his powers would be a disaster—”
“Xavier’s dead, Jaxon. He’s dead and it’s our fault! How are we supposed to live with that? How am I ever supposed to forgive myself for not fighting you harder? For not demanding that you listen? For not getting through to you?”
“You learn to understand what the rest of us already do. That it is a goddamn tragedy—” His voice breaks, but he clears his throat, swallows a couple of times. “It is a tragedy that Xavier died. But he said it himself the other night. Some things are worth dying for. Because if Hudson gets free with his powers, then a lot more people are going to suffer, a lot more people are going to die than just Xavier. That’s what you don’t understand.”
His words resonate. They do. Because I wasn’t here eighteen months ago. I didn’t see firsthand what Hudson did. I didn’t see what led to Jaxon feeling like he had to kill his brother.
And that’s when it hits me.
Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe the reason he can’t believe me is that if he does, he’s going to have to acknowledge that he didn’t have to kill his brother. He’s going to have to acknowledge that maybe he made the worst mistake of his life.
But we can’t keep doing this. We can’t keep chasing after ways to keep the world safe from Hudson, not when those ways leave people dead or badly injured.