Page 54 of By the Pint

He cocked his head to the side and observed me for a moment. “Well, there’s no point lying to you. Yes. It is. What’s more powerful than an immortal being who can read minds? I will have incredible strength and speed. Human weaknesses would no longer apply to me. I’d never be too cold, or too warm.I’d never get ill. I wouldn’t need as much sleep, or to eat, or use the bathroom as frequently.

“But you would lose you,” I said, my voice coming out more like a squeak. “Everything that defines you will be gone in an instant. You won’t remember your family—”

“My family hates me. No big loss.”

Triggered memories of his parents and other people with the ‘Freckleman’ look floated to the front of his mind. He wasn’t lying, or exaggerating, they didn’t like him. It made my heart ache.

“What about your friends?”

Casey lifted a brow in a challenge.

“Okay, so no friends,” I said. The ache in my heart burrowed itself deeper.

“It’s my own fault.” He cracked open a can of Mai Tai, took a sip, brought a knee up to his chest, and gazed out over the hotel grounds. “I’ve spent my entire life looking after myself. At the expense of everyone else. I get what I want. At whatever cost. Even if it means trampling over people.” He shrugged, but the nonchalance was only surface level deep. “Nobody likes Casey ‘The Temper’ Freckleman. And that’s okay. I don’t need people to like me. I need them to do what I want them to do. I don’t need friends or family. I’m happy alone. You understand this, surely? As a mind-reader. It’s just too fucking noisy with other people around.”

I nodded. I understood all too well. I’d spent the better part of three hundred years avoiding people because of the noise pollution. “You’re wrong though.”

Casey snapped his head towards me.

I like you, I said, too afraid to say it aloud.I like you a lot.

Well, you’re an anomaly.

I laughed.You’re forgetting that I can see past what everyone else sees. I see past the ‘disgraced ex-wingball star’.Past the guy in the designer suit and gryphon-leather shoes. Past the hot as fuck gym hunk. I see past the guy who shouts at the barista for fucking up his order and forgetting his oat milk.

He flinched at this but kept quiet.

I see past the scared teenager that ran from his religious parents’ house to his older boyfriend’s because he heard the disgust in their minds before they had a chance to talk to him about it. Even though he was certain they wouldn’t have outright rejected him.

His breaths were shallow, his eyes fixed on mine. Casey wanted me to shut my fucking mouth, but he also wanted me to keep going. It was the kind of pain that was raw, but necessary. Like digging into an existing wound. Like peeling off a fresh scab and waiting for the blood to flow again.

I see the little boy that promised himself he would never fall in love, or get married, because he knew how much his parents hated each other. And how often his father pissed the family’s money up the wall. And how much time his mother spent at the school caretaker’s house.

I see the teenager that locked himself in a cupboard and cried for a solid week when his dog was put to sleep.

Without warning, he broke down. His fingers immediately pressed into his eye sockets as though he could push his tears back in. “Fuck!” He brought the other knee up and dropped it again straight away.

I let him fill the silence with strangled sobs. He choked them back, as if trying to swallow them down, as if he couldn’t bear to have anyone witness his lapse of control.

“Fuck. I fucking loved that dog. She was … really old.” Casey laughed, groaned, sobbed, and laughed again. His mind whirred with,Can’t let Dima see; Jackie! Pull yourself together; Fuck, it hurts, why?

“Emotions are not human weaknesses. They’re not any kind of weaknesses. It’s okay to grieve, and feel lonely, and want connections,” I said. And though I said this out loud, I couldn’t bring myself to admit I felt those things too.

Why was I always placing everyone else’s feelings above my own?

I should admit it. Jump right into plan A. Confess my own loneliness and try to convince Casey to stay human and make me a little less lonely. Only … There was so much for both of us to lose.

“Don’t run from your feelings,” I said, instead. “I see them, and they are all beautiful.”

“Fucking telepaths.” He ran a hand through his hair. “It’s just— I don’t know what— I …” He never finished his thought, even inside his mind.

What I don’t understand though, I said, internally again, because it felt wrong to talk about it aloud.Is your control over what other people see and think of you is so …I searched for the right word.Is so consuming, so acute, so restrictive, you only let them see the worst in you.

Casey didn’t respond. He placed his hands either side of his thighs, as though preparing to jump the forty feet to the ground. My words replayed inside his mind.

I realised then that plan A would never work. To talk him out of it, convince him to stay human. Casey hated his life as it was. Why would he want to salvage anything from it and keep his human memories?

And I guessed that meant plan B was a washout, too. Why would he want to hold on to his memories, even if there was a way, if he hated everything as it was?

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