We Won't Feel a Thing (26 page)

“Don’t go,” said Medora. “It’s okay! Tell me how awful you feel. Let’s write a song together.”

Riley rested a hand on Medora’s shoulder. He stroked her flaming guitar with his thumb, the heat coming back to his fingers. “I don’t want to,” he said.

Medora gaped at him. “What is
wrong
with you?”

***

I’m sorry. I’m sorry,
Rachel said to the Prince. She’d mentally thrown him across the boat; he was sprawled in the stern in a sad and undignified pose.
I didn’t mean to do that.

The clings relaxed a bit. To her horror, tears were pooling in her eyes.

It’s not you. You’re perfect. Give me a minute; I wasn’t ready yet.
She put her elbows on her knees, raked her fingers through her hair. She rocked herself.
Stay with me. Stay with me…

The Prince sat down beside her. He rubbed her shoulder tenderly. It was the same thing Riley had done the last time she had book-rage, when Queen Vesuvia got killed in Book 8 of the Winterthorne series. “She had an awesome, wicked life,” Riley had assured her, wrapping their penguins-in-scarves blanket around her shoulders. “And at least she went out with a bang.”

What are you doing?
Rachel scolded the Prince’s hand, blinking her tears away, furious with herself for such unqueenly behavior.
This is not what I need.

I know who you need,
said the Prince.

I don’t need anyone,
said Rachel.

Everyone needs someone.
The Prince laid a hand on her fist.
Let go.

Her hands unclenched. She made herself think of Riley. A tiny flame leaped up in her belly and she crossed her hands over the warm spot, protecting it. She felt suddenly naked, as if her dress had turned to bluebirds and fluttered away.

“What if I do?” she whispered out loud. “What then?”

The Prince shrugged.

How would I know?
he said.

He kissed her cheek and stood up in the boat. With a cheerful salute, he jumped overboard.

“Hey!” Rachel got up, struggling to balance. Old wood cracked under her high heel.
“Hey!”

The lake’s still surface answered her.

I’m standing in a boat, in the middle of a lake,
she thought,
yelling at a figment.
She sat with a thump.
I’m losing it.
The oars were gone; she’d let them go somewhere, somehow. Panic squeezed her throat. She glanced behind her, measuring the distance back to shore. When she looked down, she noticed her feet had vanished.

She lifted them out of dark water, which was collecting—fast—in the bottom of the boat.

***

Save her,
Riley thought. He ran outside to the men’s toilet trailers, his heart thrashing wildly. He made himself think of her. Diagramming sentences, kissing him in the shed. His gray blur of Rachel-thoughts turned to golden shimmers.
She’s still in there. I can still feel her.

He hoped it wasn’t too late.

Riley ducked in a trailer and latched the door behind him. He threw his jacket on the floor, stripped off his shirt, dropped his pants to his ankles so he could reach every piece of the SmartClings.

He dislodged a small flap from his chest. One definitive yank. Half of it would tear away, as if he were ripping off a disguise, and then—

“OW!”

Riley clapped a hand to his chest. Pain shrieked across his sternum. He lifted his hand and ventured a peek. Only a half-inch of silver had come loose, and it had taken skin with it. Bright blood pooled in the cut.

“Oh no,” he muttered. His knees went weak. “No no no…”

He scraped off another tiny piece. New pinpricks of blood rose up. His nerves caught fire. David’s warning bobbed up in his mind, like the face of a corpse in dark water:

Do not attempt to remove them before the cycle is over.

Riley’s vision fuzzed. He clutched the sink. This was bad. He couldn’t even get blood drawn without Rachel in the room, humming “Poor Unfortunate Souls” to distract him.

She’s not here.
He practiced the words.
This is all you.

Forcing deep breaths, he turned the hot water on and scrubbed his hands. He removed a TRICK & LAURIE matchbook from his pocket. Using the cardboard edge, he began to scrape off the network of silver clings, starting with his chest. He nearly passed out twice in the first five minutes, but then he devised a new way to breathe—to the rhythm of faucet drips, while humming Rachel’s song. It could have been worse. Some parts clung fast to his skin; others let go without a fight. He never knew when more pain would hit, but that was okay. He got comfortable with unpredictability once he got used to it.

He scratched and scraped and washed and wiped until every last bit of silver was gone.

Riley leaned forward, spent. He rested his head on the mirror. A few droplets of blood pattered into the sink. He called up a test image: Rachel sprawled on her bed in her glasses and poison-apple shirt, chewing her pen cap while she proofread. He felt her again, a hot brilliant outburst of red and gold. Full blast.

Riley pulled his shirt back on. He buttoned a few buttons. Blood bloomed on the shirt in a half-dozen places, but he didn’t care. He wasn’t going back to the reception.

He rushed outside to find Rachel.

She wasn’t standing in the trees anymore, but somehow he knew he wouldn’t find her there. He checked the gazebo, where he hoped she’d be waiting with her back to him and the wind animating her blue dress. The gazebo was empty. So was the beach. He ran all the way around the recreation center, shouting out for her, ready to burst back into the reception bloody and wild if he couldn’t find her here.

When he came full circle, he heard something in the trees.

Someone or something was hurt, or scared.
Don’t let it be her.
He followed the muffled cries through the thicket of pines.
Please don’t let her be hurt.
Branches snapped under his feet; he shuddered, feeling how easily some things broke.

He found Rachel in an old rowboat. Not the one he saw her turn over—this was a purple one, the shade of a healing bruise. Her forehead rested on her knees and her arms hugged her legs. She was comprehensively wet. And she was crying.

Riley froze. Even if he hadn’t loved her That Way, Rachel crying would still be a terrible sound. He hadn’t heard her cry for ages, not since the queen lost her head at the end of the Winterthorne series and she’d hurled the book across the room. She was fighting it like she did then, fighting with every sob, mortified each time a new one slipped out.

He took a step closer. “Rach.”

She released her knees and sat up, startled. Blood flecked her chest and skirt. He looked closer, saw red streaks and scratches on her skin. Everywhere she’d scraped away the SmartClings.

He climbed in the rowboat with her.

***

Rachel reached out, pushed his shirt aside with one finger.

“You took them off,” she said, surveying his skin in disbelief.

“You did too.”

“The blood,” she murmured. “How did you…?”

“It wasn’t so bad,” he said. “I mean…considering the alternative.”

She sniffled. “Yeah.”

“I didn’t want to lose this. I didn’t want you painted over with a stranger.” He rested his hands on her shoulders. “I
like
being in love with you.”

This set her off again. She bowed her head and sobbed into her hands, still raw inside from her panicked swim to shore. Riley waited, stroking her hair.

“I’m sorry, Ri.” She clasped his knee with one hand. “I’m such an asshole.”

“Me too.”

“But I’m like, a natural asshole. You were just pretending.”

“Pretending to be an asshole is a pretty asshole move.”

She wiped her nose. “There’s no shortcut, is there?”

“I don’t think so.”

“We’re just going to stay in love, and it’s going to be weird, and we’re going to be two thousand seven hundred and ninety miles apart, and no matter what we do it’s just going to suck, a lot, for a really long time.”

“Pretty much.”

She blinked at his shirt.

“Riley.”

“Yeah.”

“…Is there a condom in your pocket?”

“Oh god.” Riley patted his shirt. “That girl put it in there.”

“Put
what
in
where
?”

“No, I mean—” He blushed. “We didn’t do much. She just…wanted to write a song with me.”

Rachel’s eyebrow shot up. A wild laugh surged up her throat. She let it out. Rachel and Riley laughed together, their shoulders shaking, the ancient rowboat creaking under their weight.

“We’re a mess,” said Riley.

“The absolute worst,” said Rachel.

Calm settled over her like their favorite penguins-in-scarves blanket. It had been a long time since she’d felt like that. She could tell they were thinking the same thing.

Rachel took the Step Six bullet from the pocket of her cardigan, along with the sodden printout of David’s instructions. Riley took his bullet out too.

“You ready?”

“Definitely.”

Chapter Sixteen

Did you know, Rachel and Riley, that taste can have a powerful impact on chemistry?

Brain chemistry. And that troublesome other kind as well.

Once Step Five has redirected your passions, you will lock in its benefits with a course of lozenges scientifically engineered to induce indifference toward The Object. (If you’re wondering, participants in past pilot studies have described the taste of indifference as unsauced pasta with limp-celery undertones.)

This one is fairly simple: remove your first Step Six lozenge from the protective silver bullet and let it dissolve on your tongues as you think of each other. For the sake of illustration, though, I will tell you what NOT to do.

Rachel and Riley climbed out of the rowboat. Arm in arm, they made their way out of the woods.

Do not precede Step Six with an evening of tears and mooning, an indulgence that can undo the progress you’ve made thus far. Do not entertain dreams of what you’ve lost, of drive-in movies and candlelight dinners and long walks on the beach.

They walked together to the shore of Beechwood Lake. Out in the gazebo, the double-wave mosaic glittered, beckoning.

Do not, on a toxic whim, brave the long journey to her apartment with a bouquet of newsstand roses that you know are a romcom cliché. Do not knock on her door, and when she refuses to answer it, do not slump down on the floor and pour out ghastly apologies and unpack the secret torments of your heart, until she finally unlatches her eight locks and opens the door, her hair in a celestial puff and her eyes like tunnels without an end.

Do not take her hand when she holds it out to you.

The ramp to the gazebo creaked under their shoes. Rachel and Riley joined hands and began the walk. The evening breeze glanced off the water and found them, lifting their hair and cooling their little wounds.

They stepped into the dark gazebo. A carpet of thick white beach towels muffled their footsteps. They crept around the card-table altar—Riley went left, Rachel went right—and met underneath the mosaic.

One wave arched above Rachel’s head, the other above Riley’s. In the middle, above the base where the waves joined together, there was empty space.

I have every confidence in you both. I believe you are intelligent, dedicated, determined to do right by yourselves and each other. And after this final step, the two of you will be just fine.

Do it.

“Now?” said Riley.

“Now,” said Rachel.

With all their strength, Rachel and Riley threw the silver bullets through the space between the waves. Two splashes sounded in the center of Beechwood Lake. They imagined the bullets plummeting to the bottom, vanishing in the wreckage of a sunken rowboat. Riley ripped David’s wet instructions and left them on the card-table altar. Then they turned to each other.

Rachel wound Riley’s deviant curl around her finger, twisting it the way it would never grow. She held it for a long moment that felt like a question, and then she let go.

They kissed carefully, attentively, as if they’d be tested on it later. The white beach towels on the floor seemed to be there for a reason; with their eyes, they made a mutual decision to collapse on them together. The gazebo floor felt hard underneath them and they cringed, wondering why movie people did it on floors and what else love scenes lied about.

“You smell nice,” Riley murmured into her neck. “Like a dryer vent.”

“It’s Enchanted Moonlight.”

“Sorry about the gazebo.”

“Why?”

“It’s kind of crappy.” He peered up at the peeling paint, the cobwebs haunting the corners. “There aren’t even lanterns. Or white Christmas lights.”

She glanced at his mosaic. “It’s perfect.”

“I think we should take precautions.”

“We will.”

“I mean…additional precautions.” Riley gave her a
hold-that-thought
kiss and dragged a few pots of tropical plants in front of the gazebo railing. Hands trembling, he fanned out the silver foil crunched around the pots.

Rachel giggled. “What are you doing?”

“Privacy hibiscus.” Riley stopped. “Hibiscuses? Hibisci?”

“I…don’t know.”

The words echoed lightly across the water.

“You don’t know.” He crawled back to her. “You…Rachel Anna Seton…
don’t know.”

“There may be one or two things,” she said, paring away her wet sweater, “that I still have to learn.”

She tossed the sweater, because that was sexy. They were up on their knees, face to face in the dark. Rachel slid Riley’s shirt off his shoulders. Riley unzipped her dress and let it fall. They took in the secrets their clothes had kept from each other. Riley’s chest hair looked awkwardly self-trimmed to Rachel, and this was the sweetest thing she could have imagined. Rachel’s chest was flatter than Riley had envisioned, and one breast was slightly bigger than the other. It looked good on her. She looked like a huntress on an urn.