Chapter Six

ASHA
It takes effort to understand two places at once. Most of the time they blend together and make me confused but Desmond wants me to keep them apart so I stay me. I am not doing well yet. My nerves are telling me I am in my room with my back against the mattress, skin warm from the comforter. My head is off the edge, and I am staring upside-down at the carpet while blood flows into my head. My braid is coiled beneath me on the floor. Trying to look at it makes my eyes hurt. But my hands are doing dishes, wondering at the feel of plastic underwater and how crinkled the soap makes my fingers feel. My eyes also see Reid enter the hallway and begin removing his shoes. Nanda's voice tells him where I am, and with closed eyes I watch him walk up the stairs away from me. When I open them again he is standing in the doorway. I force myself to focus on the me in this room. My hands feel suddenly dry.

“Asha, what are you doing?” He stares down at me from the doorway with eyes made greener by the darkness of the hallway behind him.

“I am studying for an exam with Nanda,” I reply. I try lifting my head but it makes me dizzy. For a moment, my room is the kitchen.

“Right. This is exactly how I look when I'm studying with someone.” He does not smile. Something is wrong. I lift my head successfully this time and roll over to look at him from a better angle.

“You are in a bad mood.”

“No, I'm not. I have news from Desmond.”

I sit up quickly and Nanda chides me for making him feel queasy. I ignore him and keep my focus on Reid. “How was the meeting?”

He crosses the room and sits down next to me on the bed without answering. After a moment, he looks down at me with a frown.

“We're supposed to hang out together three times a week.”

“You are acting like this is bad news.”

He shakes his head. “You don't get it. Desmond's decided you can't go out in public alone yet, and wants to give you practice. I'm supposed to come along when you do.”

Nanda is furious and wants to know why he was not chosen to be my escort. Only after I have asked the question do I realize I agree with his anger. Reid's sister had given him practice with strong empaths, but Nanda has never let me faint into a buffet.

Reid pauses and looks at me with his hollow eyes. Face empty. He does not want me to know what he is thinking. Finally, he responds. “If I do this, the Fleet doesn't deport me for refusing to use my abilities. Chose me over Nanda for my benefit.”

Something about this does not seem right to Nanda, but I believe him. “Then this really is good news, Reid!”
He goes quiet again. I lie back down and wait for him to continue. I know both Desmond and him well enough by now to realize that there is more to be said. Finally, he leans back alongside me and stares at the ceiling. “So what days do you want to do this?”

“I am usually free. Do we want to go every other day?”

He nods. “That's fine. We can start tonight.”

I turn my head to look over at him but all I can see is his shoulder and his hair. He's been letting it grow. It is longer than Nanda's now. It looks very soft and reminds me of how my leopard would be if she were still alive. But I do not touch it. “Is there anything specific we are supposed to do?”

He shrugs. “We go where they tell me to take you.”

“Oh. Are you not responsible for deciding what we do?”

“Asha, it's not like I'm taking you on a date.” His voice makes my stomach feel icy.

“Then how is this any different from you or I picking what to do when we see one another?” I clutch a pillow to my chest.

He snorts. “All of that was voluntary.”

“And this is not?”

“No, it's mandatory!”

“So do you not want to help me?”

He turns his face to me and frowns. “No, I guess I don't.”

Nanda wants to come upstairs and join in the conversation but I keep him away. I want him to understand Reid's body language, but Reid would only become more unreasonable if Nanda were to enter. “Then do not help me. Someone else can do it.”

He shakes his head. “Unfortunately, they've picked me.”

“Then stop punishing me for something neither of us has control over.”

Reid lifts up onto one arm and glares down at me angrily. “Look, if it weren't for your inability to remain in control we wouldn't have to do this at all!”

“Do you honesty think I chose to be born a Type Three?” A dish clatters out of Nanda's hand and bounces along the kitchen tile, sending soapy specks into the air. He reaches to retrieve it with shaking hands. Reid stares at me, and for a moment I believe he is feeling guilty.

“No, I don't. Sorry.”

“Reid, what is wrong?” I put a hand on his arm, and he jerks away from me. My stomach grows colder.
“Nothing. It's not fun anymore.” He will not meet my eyes.

“What is not?”

“Being around you.”

I feel tears in my eyes but I blink them away. I need to stay focused. If I lose myself now, I will not have a chance to figure out what is making him act this way. “I thought we were friends.”

Reid shrugs.

“Reid, this makes no sense!” I reach for him again. He moves to shove my arm away so I grab ahold of his wrist instead.

“Let me go, Asha.” His voice is too quiet.

“No! There is something else. We have had too much fun. You have let me get too close. You almost killed Keven!”

“Stop it!” His free hand wraps around my wrist painfully. I feel Nanda's feet on the stairs. No! His hand clutches the banister uncertainly.

“No!” I lunge at Reid and pin him on the bed for an instant before he rolls me off him and onto the floor. My back hits the carpet just as he presses himself against my stomach. My lungs burn and I struggle for breath.

“Stop this, Asha. You're being ridiculous.” His skin feels hot against mine. His face is too close. Breathing ragged. Familiar. My eyes will not listen this time when I tell them not to cry. He lets me go when he hears my breath catch, and I bring my knees to my face and curl in on myself to get away from his eyes. Soon he is standing above me silently.

“Are we not friends?” I repeat. My voice sounds broken.

“Look. I was being nice, okay? It's not worth it anymore.” Flat.

“Fine!” I kick his ankle and he falls back against the bed with a growl.

“Very mature.” He rubs at his ankle and hisses.

“I could say the same to you!”

We look at each other for a moment before he drops his eyes again. He knows that what he is doing makes no sense but I am too angry to be patient now. “Fine!” I repeat. “Inform me when you figure out where you will be taking me, Mr. Addison.”

“Assume it won't be dancing.” He rises from my bed and limps out of the room. The sound of my door slamming turns the ice in my stomach into pain. I cannot see. Cannot think. Nanda-ku! The rug burns into the palms of my hands and I am on the floor and there are arms around me and a familiar smell. Nanda's hair slides against my shoulders as he pulls me to him.
“Asha-na, breathe. Breathe. I am here.” Our language. He holds me close even though I feel like I will vomit. He does not care. Neither of us have any idea what is wrong with Reid. Nanda is convinced he is lying but that does not make me feel any better. Why would he lie to me?

“Something must have happened,” Nanda murmurs in my ear. We both remember how little Desmond and Reid get along but Nanda warns me not to ask Desmond.

“Caroline?” He suggests.

I shake my head. “She is reluctant to talk about Reid.” Nanda follows my thought and is shocked by the images in my head. Caroline's memories. Mine now.

“Oh.”

I giggle at him and he becomes embarrassed.

“That... that does not bother you, Asha?”

“Why should it?” I wipe my face dry on his sleeve. He grumbles at me.

“If I liked Reid as much as you did, I would be jealous of her.”

“Instead, you are jealous of Reid.” He tenses against me. “That does not bother me either,” I add. I trust Nanda and I trust Caroline. They have been honest with me since I met them. And, until a moment ago, I trusted Reid.

“Wait,” Nanda says as he picks up on a stray thought. “Caroline likes Desmond?”

I grin up at him. “I think it is adorable. I told her that she should date him.”

He sighs. “Next thing I know, Seamus will have someone.”

I shake my head. “He does not like any girls.”

Nanda does not care. He is worried about being alone. I sigh and lean against him and he throws his arms around me and gives me a tight hug. He has not reacted well to Elene and Bastian's relationship, or to Diane's absences from campus. He knows it is silly to feel as alone as she is, but if he loses me he will have no family left.

Family.

“Nanda, you are not going to lose me.”

“But I cannot exactly have you, either.”

I rest my head against his shoulder and he brushes a few stray hairs behind my ear. “No, you cannot.”

“And it does not bother you that I think these things?”

“No. Many people have thought far worse.” He shudders as we remember Keven. Keven was not fair. Nanda is fair. He would never make me want him. I do not realize I have begun to cry again until he is wiping my eyes dry with his shirt.

“See? What would I do without you?” My words make him sad.

Nanda hears feet on the stairs before I do, but I feel Elene first. As soon as she learns something is wrong she takes the steps two at a time. By the time she enters the room she knows everything that has happened.

“That idiot,” Elene mutters, collapsing onto the carpet beside us. “He's better than that!”

“I know,” I sigh. Nanda disagrees but we both ignore him.

“I will let you two have your room back,” he says in Kiranese, rising to his feet in a smooth motion that Elene thinks is graceful. She loves watching us move. It makes us both feel out of place.

“Poor Nanda,” she says as he leaves. Now it is my turn to feel guilty.

Elene rises and moves to collapse on her bed. I rise and return to my own. She is trying to figure out what is wrong with Reid but neither of us know and so we give up.

“Maybe he got cold feet.” She throws a pillow at the door.

I learn what she means and shake my head. “No. He has always had cold feet. This was different.”
“Asha, he's always been a bit of a coward,” she says slowly. I am too tired to be angry on his behalf and so my head-shaking is not convincing.

“How did you get Bastian to open up to you?” She reproaches me gently for the question because she and Bastian have known each other for two years and Reid and I only a few months. The situations are different.

“I know that, but Elene, was he like this? Did he push you away?”

Elene meets my eyes and nods at me after a moment. “Yes. He still does, sometimes. Every time we get closer, he pushes back a little because he is afraid he'll lose me like he lost Natalya.”

I think of Reid's sister and feel the ice lining my stomach re-form. Bastian and Reid were both treated badly by non-empaths. Both lost someone they loved over it. Bastian's response was to become angry. But Reid shut down completely. Why?

“Asha,” Elene says with a touch of exasperation. “They are not the same person!” She does not want to talk about Natalya and she is angry with Reid for saying what he said to me. When this makes me sad, she becomes guilty.

“I'm sorry. It hurts. I never met the girl, but she's my one competitor. His one standard. And we're different. Sometimes that's what he likes most about me. And then he'll have a bad day and want me to be exactly like she was and I can't.” She shakes her head and feels angry at herself. “How can Reid and Caroline not bother you?”
“Like you said. It is different. They did not love each other.”

“I'm sorry I'm being unfair, Asha.”

“How is this unfair? You are upset, and so am I.”

“Yes, but. Asha, I know exactly how Bastian feels about me. Even when things are going badly and we've fought and his mind is consumed with his grief for her, I still know that he cares. He drowns me with it, even when everything else is terrible. He can't hide.”

It is true. Every time Bastian and Elene are together with me I feel it.

“Reid doesn't even give you that. So while my lying about and moping is terrible, and weak, and selfish, you doing the same thing is completely justified.”

“Elene, how much have I changed?”

Her mind collapses in on itself in a tangle of memories and I am left feeling slightly out of breath. She is trying to think about me but all I see are my eyes and my scar. Every memory she has of me is tied to one or the other. Like when I think of her I see sunlight on grass and in water. I know enough now to understand that these thoughts would make no sense to Desmond or Caroline. But they make sense to us.

Us. For the first time I fully understand the danger of the word. It is what makes Bastian and Reid incapable of relating to one another. They do not define “us” in the same way. This thought makes me scared. Now that I understand what it can do I can finally explain to Desmond why works are so useless and why I still would rather not speak aloud. It is different with Elene-Nanda-Bastian-Seamus because they know what I am thinking when I choose my words. Non-empaths do not. They pretend their words have set meanings, but they do not. Everyone gives them their own definitions and then are surprised when they cannot understand one another.

Elene sighs. “I was going to say you hadn't changed, Asha, until you did that.”

I giggle. “Is it bad that I am finally learning how the world works?”

She does not know. Suddenly it does not seem as funny.




END BOOK ONE