Chapter 29

“But I do.”

“Not when you mess with my head because you think I can’t handle the truth.”

He looked at me—really looked at me this time. “Yes, and what is the truth?”

“You want me to hate you so that you can sweep me under your consciousness and go back to your sleepwalking.”

He didn’t say anything for a long time. At last, he let out a long breath. “Well, do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Hate me.”

“No,” I said, “I don’t hate you. Disappointed?”

He exhaled slowly, frowning. “How do you know me so well?”

I couldn’t tell him that it was because I paid attention to every one of his words or expressions. That every conversation we’d ever had was embedded in my mind.

He held out his hand to me. “Friends?”

“I don’t think so,” I answered without thinking.

No, we couldn’t be friends. That I couldn’t do. It would be too much to ask of me. I felt too deeply for him. I needed some distance. Some time. “I can’t, Davinder.”

“But Elsie and Dayton, they’ll wonder…We have to—”