Fallen - Lauren Kate [107]
“I fall in love,” he explained, taking her hands and holding them tightly. “Over and over again. And each time, it ends catastrophically.”
“Over and over again.” The words made her ill. Luce closed her eyes and withdrew her hands. He’d already told her this. That day at the lake. He’d had breakups. He’d been burned. Why bring up those other girls now? It had hurt then and it hurt even more now, like a sharp pain in her ribs. He squeezed her fingers.
“Look at me,” he pleaded. “Here’s where it gets hard.”
She opened her eyes.
“The person I fall in love with each time is you.”
She’d been holding her breath, and meant to exhale, but it came out as a sharp, cutting laugh.
“Right, Daniel,” she said, starting to stand up. “Wow, you really are damned. That sounds horrible.”
“Listen.” He pulled her back down with a force that made her shoulder throb. His eyes flashed violet and she could tell he was getting angry. Well, so was she.
Daniel looked up into the peach tree canopy, as if for help. “I’m begging you, let me explain.” His voice quaked. “The problem isn’t loving you.”
She took a deep breath. “What is it?” She willed herself to listen, to be stronger and not to feel hurt. Daniel looked like he was broken up enough for both of them.
“I get to live forever,” he said.
The trees rustled around them, and Luce noticed the faintest trickle of a shadow out of the corner of her eye. Not the sick, all-consuming swirl of blackness from the bar last night, but a warning. The shadow was keeping its distance, seething coldly around the corner, but it was waiting. For her. Luce felt a deep chill, down in her bones. She couldn’t shake the sensation that something colossal, black as night, something final was on its way.
“I’m sorry,” she said, dragging her eyes back to Daniel. “Could you, um, say that again?”
“I get to live forever,” he repeated. Luce was still lost, but he kept talking, a stream of words pouring out of his mouth. “I get to live, and to watch babies being born, and grow up, and fall in love. I watch them have babies of their own and grow old. I watch them die. I am condemned, Luce, to watch it all over again and again. Everyone but you.” His eyes were glassy. His voice dropped to a whisper. “You don’t get to fall in love—”
“But …,” she whispered back. “I’ve … fallen in love.”
“You don’t get to have babies and grow old, Luce.”
“Why not?”
“You come along every seventeen years.”
“Please—”
“We meet. We always meet, somehow we’re always thrown together, no matter where I go, no matter how I try to distance myself from you. It never matters. You always find me.”
He was staring down at his clenched fists now, looking like he wanted to hit something, unable to raise his eyes.
“And every time we meet, you fall for me—”
“Daniel—”
“I can resist you or flee from you or try my hardest not to respond to you, but it makes no difference. You fall in love with me, and I with you.”
“Is that so terrible?”
“And it kills you.”
“Stop it!” she cried. “What are you trying to do? Scare me away?”
“No.” He snorted. “It wouldn’t work, anyway.”
“If you don’t want to be with me …,” she said, hoping that it was all an elaborate joke, a breakup speech to end all breakup speeches, and not the truth. It could not be the truth. “… there’s probably a more believable story to tell.”
“I know you can’t believe me. This is why I couldn’t tell you until now, when I have to tell you. Because I thought I understood the rules and … we kissed, and now I don’t understand anything.”
His words from the night before came back to her: I don’t know how to stop it. I don’t know what to do.
“Because you kissed me.”
He nodded.
“You kissed me and when we were done, you were surprised.”
He nodded again, having the grace to look a little sheepish.
“You kissed me,” Luce continued, searching for a way to put it all together, “and you thought I wasn’t going to survive it?”
“Based on previous experience,” he said hoarsely. “Yes.”
“That’s just crazy,” she said.
“It’s not