Why? Because he’s handsome, because we’ve been through things that make me feel like I’ve known him forever, because he’s the most stable thing in my life right now. Because I want something good for once. Because the idea of leaving him terrifies me so much more than it ever did to leave Theo, and that has to mean something, right?
“Because I want to,” I say.
Nick’s throat bobs. “I don’t think—”
“And I know it wouldn’t work because, look at me, right? And you don’t like being touched. I respect that. Kissing is really weird if you think about it too hard. I just thought you should know how I feel before all this happens. In case I don’t get to see you again.”
He doesn’t meet my eyes.
I should have kept my mouth shut.
“I made it weird,” I say. “Didn’t I?”
“I don’t like kissing,” Nick says.
I’m going at this from the wrong angle. He’s focusing on the kissing, not everything around it. Not what I actually need to say. “Nick, I’m using kissing you as shorthand. For the fact that I like you.”
“Oh,” Nick says. And then, “Oh.” And then, “I don’t know why you—” and a few other half-hearted, aborted protests that make an ache in my chest grow heavier and heavier before finally he lands on, “I don’t know how this works.”
I shake my head. “It’s fine. We don’t have to talk about it.”
“No.” He takes a half step away and taps the back of his neck with his palm like he’s trying to knock his thoughts loose. He says, “I don’t know how to tell if I like someone. I don’t know how it works, and I don’t want to be wrong.” He says, “I don’t know why you would like me, I don’t understand.” He says, “There are no rules for this. It scares me.”
I never thought Nick could be scared of anything. “Really?”
“I don’t want to be wrong. People get hurt when I’m wrong.”
“Nick, that’s not—”
“Salvador nearly died because of me,” Nick says. “Because I made a mistake. Because I was wrong about something.” I see the scars again—up and down xyr face, warping skin, painful—and the hurt in Nick’s voice is enough to answer every question I’ve ever had about xe’s old wounds. “So don’t. Don’t say that.”
I swallow, hard. “I’m tough enough to handle it. I swear.”
“But what if I lose you?”
Now I’m echoing him. Oh. Oh. What if he loses me. What if I lose him. What if all of this goes to hell, and we end up with bullets in our heads, and the Angels standing over our bodies. What if it all goes right, but I turn into a monster that isn’t worth loving. What if all of it is for nothing?
“Then we can figure it out if I come back,” I say. “When we don’t have to worry about that anymore.”
“Okay,” he says. “Okay,” and he reaches for me and pulls me in until our foreheads touch. Until our noses bump together, and his breath warms my cheek. God, he’s so warm.
This is the last time I will be safe for days, but it might as well be forever. I’m terrified. I could stay here for the rest of time, if the world would just let me.
“When,” Nick says. “When you come back.”
When I come back, we can talk about it. We can face whatever the hell this is. We can figure it out.
When I come back.
“Okay.”
“Are you ready?” he asks.