Page 26

Damian pulled out of me, uttering a string of swear words. He yanked down my dress and zipped himself away. He backed up, all the way up, into the wall of the basement, and he rested his head there and covered his face with his hands.

I straightened, smoothing out the skirt of my dress. I was deeply, deeply embarrassed, sort of ashamed, and I had forgotten this part, too, how everything with Damian was like this. We’d be minding our own business, doing normal things, and then we’d be caught up in our attraction to each other, which would be overwhelming.

I loved it, because it felt good, but I hated it, because it was out of my control.

“Go.” Damian’s voice was strangled.

I bit down on my bottom lip. “We didn’t really talk.”

“Maybe it’s better if we aren’t alone together.” He still had his hands over his face.

Maybe it was. “Yeah,” I said softly. I moved into the doorway of the basement, the sun hitting my face, too bright after the darkness within.

“Get it, the manifesto, from the passenger seat of my car,” he said. “She wrote it to you.”

I did not even know what he was talking about.

I stepped out onto the road and I saw my dad further down, past the abandoned cabin, heading towards the Philips dock. “Dad, I’m heading back,” I yelled.

He turned and he looked me up and down. “Where did you come from?”

I could not explain that to him. I went back to our cabin, and as I walked by Damian’s car I saw a stack of papers in there. I opened the door and pulled it out.

There was a Post-it note on it, Opal’s handwriting. For Leo, it read. Below that, typed on the page, it said, The Other Side of Always.

I shut the door and scrutinized the manifesto or manuscript or whatever you wanted to call it.

“Hey,” said my dad, coming up behind me.

“Thanks,” I said. “Thanks for coming looking for us. If I say I want to be alone with him again, remind me I don’t know what I want when it comes to him?”

My dad’s eyes widened. He gave me a quick, very solemn nod. He looked pretty freaked out.

I wanted to reassure him, but I also wanted to be behind closed doors when Damian came for his car. So, I scurried into the cabin without another word.

OPAL

I DIDN’T PLAN it.

You won’t believe me. He sure as hell doesn’t believe me and never has. You won’t either, and I guess I expect that.

I do think there’s something that all people do, which is to rewrite history to excuse ourselves for our worst sins. Maybe this is the worst thing about us, or maybe it’s the best. Maybe we have to do it, because if we really and truly looked at ourselves, looked at all the things we have done wrong, things we have done that have been selfish, things that we have done that have been very hurtful to other people, maybe we would not be able to carry on. Maybe we would all throw ourselves off of a tall cliff and be done with it.

So, I have to imagine that the organisms that could forgive themselves, those were the ones who survived, those were the ones who passed along their genes, and that was the skill that was written into the experience of humanity.

Maybe forgiving yourself always requires lying a little—at least it requires deciding not to look at certain elements of the truth or deciding that some elements of the truth are more important than other elements.

So, I guess what I’m saying is that, when you don’t believe me, maybe you’re right. Maybe I did plan it. Not consciously, though, do you know what I mean?

Leo, I swear to you, I didn’t wake up every day for the four years we were friends and cackle maniacally at the mirror, “I have her just where I want her. She’ll never suspect that someday I intend to steal her scent match and take her place as cwen of the pack.”

This is not a cartoon.

I am not motivated by the joy of causing you pain.

Whatever you believe, you have to believe at least that.

But obviously, before I did it, the thought had occurred to me.