Page 127 of Legacy Elite

"Then stop acting like I'm the one who chose this."

The corridor is completely silent, somewhere a door shuts two floors down, and Ander Ardent stands there and does not have one single thing to say.

"I didn't choose it," I say. "Any of it. Not the bond. Not the direwolf. Not a dead family from two hundred years ago. Not a Council that meets about my blood. Not Luke, not Torres, not Soren." I take a breath. "And I definitely didn't choose whatever your family and hers decided about you when you were nine."

"I know that."

"Then behave like it."

"I know that," Ander says.

"And here's the part that's actually making me insane." I take a step. "I have never asked you for a single thing."

He looks up.

"Not once," I say. "Not one time in a year and a half. I haven't asked you to kiss me. I haven't asked you to explain yourself. I haven't asked you for a mark or a conversation or a seat next to me at dinner. I have asked you for absolutely nothing, Ander — and you have still spent three days punishing me for it."

Nothing.

"So it can't be about what I want," I say. "Because I've never told you what I want. Which leaves the other thing."

"Don't."

"Do you even want me?"

Ander doesn't answer.

The silence goes on about three seconds too long and I feel it curdle, and I hate that it hurts, and I pick my coat up off the windowsill where I'd put it down next to his.

"Right," I say. "That's what I thought."

"Jessica."

I stop with my hand on the door.

"Wanting you," Ander says, "has never been the problem."

I turn around.

And he hasn't moved, but everything about him has — both hands at his sides, jaw tight, looking at me the way he looked at me on the path outside the history building.

Two feet.

That's how far apart we are. I don't know when that happened. I can hear him breathing and I can feel the pull come up under my ribs like something being reeled in, and his eyes have gone to my mouth and stayed there.

"Then figure it out," I say.

"Jessica—"

"No, I mean it. Take as long as you like." My voice is not doing what I want it to do. "Take the year. Take the whole degree. Talk to your uncle and your father and Linnea, and work out what you want, and I won't say one word about it."

"That's—"

"But you don't get to make me pay for it," I say. "You don't get to be angry at me for something I didn't choose while you decide whether wanting me is convenient."

He doesn't say anything.

And I open the door and go, and this time I'm the one leaving, and it is nowhere near as satisfying as I expected.