“Maybe a little.” Or a lot. Whatever.

He didn’t say anything. He just kept looking at her like he could See inside her mind, and then something in his eyes changed. It was a type of resignation, but Talley didn’t have any idea what he could have resigned himself to as he hopped down off the planter.

“I’m ready,” he said.

“Ready for what?” This conversation had taken so many twists and turns she wasn’t quite sure what they were talking about at this point.

“Take whatever you want,” he said, reaching for her hand. “I want you to have it all.”

“Jase, I don’t—” but her protest died the moment his hand grabbed hers.

When she first came into her Sight a year ago, she’d had trouble filtering the information. Her first experiment had been with Toby. Not knowing that she didn’t have to try to See, she’d made an effort to pull information out of his head. What she’d gotten was a barrage of thoughts that sent her to her knees and left her with a headache for days. The only other time she’d come close to being that overwhelmed was when she tried to pull thoughts from Alex Cole’s head on the first day of school last year.

Both of those times looked like child’s play in comparison to what happened when Jase touched her. So many thoughts and emotions poured into her head that her brain shut itself off in self-defense. Her knees buckled, and she would’ve crashed to the sidewalk if Jase hadn’t caught her and slowly eased her to the ground. Some girl walking by told her friend, “And that’s why I don’t start drinking until after four during the summer.”

“Talley? Talley! Are you okay?” Jase’s face swam in front of her. “Come on, Tal. Talk to me. Tell me you’re okay.”

“Not your fault.” She had to fight to get the words out, but he had to know.

“Actually, there is no way you could argue this wasn’t my fault. I’ve never seen you pass out from Seeing someone before.”

“No, this is your fault.” He had to have been projecting as hard as he could when he grabbed her hand. “But not Scout or Charlie or Alex or any of it. It’s not your fault.”

“Talley—”

“It’s not your fault, Jase. Life sucks. We’ll punch it in the throat together.”

“You’re not punching anyone, anywhere right now,” he said, putting an arm under her shoulders, helping her to her feet. “Come on. Let’s get you to your room.”

He was no longer dumping the entire contents of his head into hers, but he wasn’t exactly being quiet with his thoughts. And now that her brain was back in the thinking game, she was Seeing him in all his beautiful, damaged glory, and it made her love him even more. How did he walk around every day with that much guilt and self-loathing and still make the world believe he was okay? If you would’ve asked Talley just minutes ago, she would have told you he was better than okay. He was Jase, for the love of all things shiny. Of course he was okay.

But he wasn’t. He blamed himself for everything that had happened over the last year, and he knew with the type of deep conviction he normally reserved for the name of the best basketball team in the world (University of Kentucky Wildcats) and best pizza topping (ham and pineapple) that Talley would hate him the moment she touched him and realized he was responsible for all the tragedies and stress they had endured.

Talley thought about explaining how stupid he was, but since she now knew about his academic insecurities she thought it might not be a good idea.

“Jase, stop.” He tried to drag her back towards her dorm, but she planted her feet and refused to move. “Stop. Look at me.”

This is it, he thought. Time to face the music.

“It’s not your fault.” Jase tried to look away, but Talley put a hand on his cheek and turned his face back towards her. Even with all the drama of the moment, the contact caused a pack of butterflies to take up residence in her stomach. Her heart stuttered as another cluster of thoughts and emotions coursed through her, but she pushed them aside. She could try to process that little bombshell later. These thoughts and emotions - this conversation - was more important.

When Jase was finally looking her in the eye, she said it again. “It’s not your fault, Jase.” His eyes turned a startling shade a green behind the tears welling up. She knew she would fall apart if one of them fell and wanted to say something witty or clever to lighten the mood, but she didn't. This had to be done. “Bad stuff happened. Bad stuff is still happening. You made some bad choices. But you know what? So did I. So did Scout, Alex, and Charlie. Do you blame me for keeping Scout and Alex a secret? Is it my fault that I insisted on staying with you guys, causing my parents to go to the Alphas? Do you blame me, Jase?”

“No, but—”

“It’s not different, so don’t even say it,” Talley said, dropping her hand from his cheek, but immediately grabbing onto his hand. It wasn’t because she wanted to See him, but because she needed to touch him. “If you want to blame someone, either blame all of us, or none of us.”

“I wish I could go back and do it all over again.” He swept a hand underneath his eyes to keep the moisture in check. “I would do things differently. I would be different.”

“So would I,” she said, and then because she could for the first time in a year, she threw herself into his arms.

Chapter 9

For a day that started with sneaking a girl out of his dorm and having an emotional breakdown on the sidewalk, the rest of Jase’s day was rather surreal in its normality. Despite all the other stuff going on in his life, he was still a college student with lectures to sit through, papers to write, and an entire book of algebra to teach himself. It was nearly midnight when he finally made it back to his dorm after a long night tucked into a study corral at the library.

For the first hour he just lay there, trying to figure out how it was that after all this time he’d finally been brave enough to let Talley See him. Was it Joshua’s ultimatum? The realization that he was hurting her by being a coward? Or was it just a frantic attempt to wipe the look of defeat out of her eyes. Honestly, he couldn’t remember. Maybe because it wasn’t a conscious decision. He just did it, and then it was over and Talley was saying all the words he didn’t deserve to hear.

And none of the ones he wanted to hear.