He frowns. “How could you say that? I just saw you. It was amazing.”
“Maybe it looks neat but—but it’s ruining your tests. And when I’m like that, I hurt people.”
“What do you mean?” he asks.
“When I go off like that people get sick. Small things die. It’s more a curse than anything. I can’t really touch people. Skin to skin.” When I say that I look at him meaningfully and he frowns.
“That’s why you go to ‘discharge’ every month?” he asks. I can see he’s mentally taking notes.
“At least. It’s been harder lately to control. I thought it was just because …”
Okay, so maybe I wasn’t ready to tell him everything. He doesn’t need to know my super-dirty thoughts of him have led me to self-flagellation. “I thought it was the stress from the new job,” I finish.
“So you discharge because if you don’t, you get sick.”
“Correct.”
“But if you were to go off right now, I’d get sick?”
We’re wandering into dangerous territory. It is lovely to be able to share but I don’t want him to know what a monster I am. How even my grandparents who loved me still feared me.
“I haven’t been able to really test that theory. As far as I figure, I’m blasting dangerous energy. I kill small things. Plants.” I pick at the cuticle of my thumb.
“Ferngully?” he asks.
I sigh. “A helpless bystander. I keep hoping that if I can control it longer, then I’ll be able to dance without going off. I’m getting better, but I can never fully let go.”
“Okay.” He nods once.
“And that’s why I have to leave.” The somber air returns. “I’m out of control lately. I’m not sure if the tests are failing because I’m going off or the tests are setting me off. Regardless, I can’t be this close to whatever is happening in that room.” I gesture in the direction of the testing facility. “I can’t ruin this contract for you.”
I can’t be the reason all your dreams come crashing to the ground. It’s bad enough I have to live a half-life. I won’t do that to anybody else. It will be hard, but it’s better to get out now before any more lives are ruined.
“But you don’t hurt people unless you go off, right?”
I can see he doesn’t understand the danger. “No. I don’t know how it works. Sometimes just being near people when I’m buzzing makes them sick,” I say hesitantly.
But if I was being honest with myself, there’s just something draining about me in general.
When I look up again he’s watching me closely. His knee bounces like it does in meetings when he’s talking about something he’s really excited about.
“What?” I ask.
“I have a proposition,” he says. “I don’t want you to leave.”
Inexplicably, chills run down my arms and my neck tingles. Why does he have to say things like that? If only he knew how my poor lonely heart interpreted them.
“I don’t want to leave yet,” I answered honestly.
I don’t. I love this weird little town. I don’t want to leave this team, this project. I don’t want to leave Nathaniel. I have this very real and very scary feeling that we were meant to meet. But still, I come with an expiration date. I will have to leave eventually.
But maybe just not yet.
“So don’t go. What if you used the testing facility to … decompress every week.”
Decompress is a much better word than discharge. I’m already leaning into this idea. The long, dark drives up to the abandoned factory are so cumbersome. A new hope starts to flare deep inside me.
“I’m not technically allowed in the test facility. I don’t want you risking this project for me,” I say. “We have to be practical.”
