Page 117 of Don't Let Me Go
Riley
It’s surreal and not a little disorienting to be sitting under the harsh fluorescent lights of the Mall at Millenia food court when less than an hour ago, Jackson and I were being murdered in the streets of Paris. Neither of us, though, could bear the thought of going home. His aunt and my dad would only have to take one look at our red eyes and haggard faces to know something was wrong. And what could we possibly tell them?
I don’t even know what to tell myself.
“Do you think it was a coincidence?” Jackson asks, looking up from the cold plate of chicken teriyaki that we ordered from Wok N Roll to share but that neither of us has touched. The mall is almost empty at this hour. Jackson and I are the only people in the food court, but he speaks in a whisper as if he’s afraid of being overheard.
“Was what a coincidence?”
“Everything that happened last weekend with our exes.”
“With our exes?” I repeat, unable to follow his train of thought.
Jackson nods solemnly. “You and I were starting to get close, then out of the blue both of our exes suddenly appeared and almost derailed us from getting together. Do you think that’s a coincidence or do you think it was?.?.?.?the universe? Jocasta said it wanted to keep us apart. Do you think—I don’t know—do you think it was using our exes to steer us away from each other so it wouldn’t have to...”
Jackson trails off, but I know what he’s saying.
Soit wouldn’t have to kill us.
“I think if the universe wanted to keep us apart,” I say as my frustration rises, “it wouldn’t have let you move to Orlando in the first place. And it certainly wouldn’t have let you move next door to one of my best friends.”
Jackson blinks in surprise. “You don’t believe Jocasta, then?”
“I don’t know what I believe,” I sigh as I throw my plastic fork down in disgust.
Ever since waking up on the floor of Jocasta’s hotel room, I’ve been ricocheting between dread and denial. I know it was only this morning that I was the one insisting that our past lives were real. But that was when my theory was just that—a theory. Now that I know I’m right, all I want is to be wrong. And for Jocasta to be wrong. She has to be. Otherwise...
My hands start to shake. Jackson reaches across the table and takes them in his. His touch is warm and comforting. But when I try to smile, my mouth can’t hold the shape.
“Riley, we need to face facts,” Jackson says, looking at me with a mixture of pity and defeat. “We’ve seen ourselves diefourtimes. And Jocasta said we’ve died at least a dozen other times. We need to consider—”
“We don’t know it’ll happen again,” I cut him off. Because I know where this conversation is going. Maybe I’m being stubborn and unreasonable, but I’ve spent my whole life waiting for someone like Jackson. I’m not about to give him up because of a few bad nightmares or because some scheming witch thinks the universe is out to get us.
“You aren’t worried about what’s gonna happen when you turn eighteen?” Jackson asks, his voice almost pleading.
“Nothingis going to happen,” I insist, snatching my hands away inannoyance. “We don’t live next to a volcano. The Germans aren’t going to bomb us. Nobody’s getting the plague. We’re going to befine.”
I’m not sure who I’m trying to convince, Jackson or myself. I don’t think it matters. Neither of us believes it.
“I’m going to the bathroom,” I announce, pushing my chair back from the table. I need to clear my head. To think. And I can’t do that with Jackson staring at me like we’re doomed passengers aboard theTitanic. “I’ll be right back.”
Forcing myself to stay calm, I walk briskly across the deserted food court, then down the long corridor that leads to the men’s room. There’s a sharp antiseptic smell of bleach that burns my nostrils when I step inside, but at least the bathroom is clean. It’s quiet and empty and gleams with a polished whiteness. Like the snow-covered fields of Brattahlid.
Where I died.
Pushing the thought out of my head, I lean over one of the motion-operated sinks and splash cold water on my face. I’m hoping the jolt will snap me out of the nightmare that I’ve found myself in. Only I’m not in a nightmare.
Jocasta, Ulfhild, my past lives—they’re all real. It’s impossible, but apparently impossible things have been happening to Jackson and me for the past two thousand years.
But even so, we don’t know for sure that we’re going to die on my birthday. Jocasta said that none of our previous selves were able to remember their past lives, that Jackson and I are the first. That has tomeansomething.
Maybe Jackson and I have been shown our past so that this time around we can learn from our mistakes. Not the way Jocasta thinks, not so we can break up and escape whatever awful death the universe has planned for us, but so we can find some way to escape deathandstay together.
That has to be a possibility, doesn’t it?
I hear the universe’s answer before I see it—a raucous, wild laughter that echoes down the hall and makes my stomach turn.
I look up from the sink, and the bathroom door flies open as the guys from the Olympus High Thunderbolts bound inside like a pack of hysterical hyenas.
