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“You really would, wouldn’t you?”
“I carry a switchblade in my purse.”
Hallie shook her head. “Dammit. I really like you.”
She watched in confused awe as a flush took over Natalie’s cheeks. “Oh. Well.” She scratched at the dark wing of her eyebrow. “Who doesn’t, right?”
They looked at each other in silence.
“It was bad, Natalie. What happened with us.” A memory of him sweating in the doorway of her bedroom popped up. She had to breathe through it. “I can’t even bring myself to tell you how badly I messed up. You’d slash my tires and break my windows.”
“Maybe.” Natalie sighed, searching for the right words. “Julian gets lost in his head sometimes, Hallie. Just give him a little while to find his way out.”
She nodded as if agreeing to that, even though she wasn’t.
If anything, the conversation with Natalie made her even more determined to move on and not allow herself to look back and hope.
She’d wreaked more than enough havoc on the universe already.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Julian typed THE END in his manuscript, and his hands fell away from the keyboard. The outline of those two words thinned until they were swallowed up in white, disappearing completely. All that was left in the absence of typing was the electronic hum of his computer, the low ringing in his ears that had been there for . . . however long it had been since it happened again. He jolted at the reminder of why he’d locked himself in this room in the first place, desperate to have his distraction back.
All he had now was silence.
A bunch of words on the screen. Clammy sweat on his skin. Still. Or again. He didn’t know.
Where was the almighty satisfaction that came from finishing a novel? It would sweep in any second now, surely. The triumph, the relief, the sense of satisfaction. He’d been chasing those things, needing them. Requiring something to be louder than the noise in his head. But there was nothing. There was nothing but his stiff joints and aching molars and bloodshot eyes, and that was fucking unacceptable.
He cleared his throat, but a hoarse sound came out instead. He dug his fingertips into his eye sockets. Jesus, it hurt to lift his arms, his joints sore from being locked up so tight. He probably hadn’t noticed, because none of it could compete with the spikes raking through his insides, and it was so much worse now that he’d stopped typing.
The light on his desk had gone out God knew when. The blinds were pulled down tight, but he could see around the edges that it was bright out. Birds were chirping, and dust motes danced in the slivers of light that he hadn’t managed to keep out.
Dread weighed down his shoulders so severely that they were beginning to protest the strain, and he knew why. He knew what he was dreading, but as soon as he acknowledged it, the final stage of numbness would wear off. So he fought to keep that final veil from lifting. Fought against the outline of her head and the sound of her voice with clenched teeth and every drop of willpower he had.
Julian’s hand shot out unexpectedly and sent the wireless keyboard flying across the room. He’d just finished a book. Wasn’t something supposed to happen now? Wasn’t there supposed to be more than an empty room and stale air and the cursor that was still blinking?
Wexler had done exactly what he was supposed to do. He’d braved the elements, he’d fought the enemy, solved the riddles left by his comrades from the past, and triumphed. Returned the artifact to its rightful owner. Now the hero stood in a valley, looking out, and there was no fulfillment. Only emptiness. Wexler was alone. He was alone, and he was . . .
Flawless. He didn’t have a single thing wrong with him. Apart from being briefly captured by his rival, he’d made no mistakes. Not one throughout the single book. He’d been rigorous and brave and uncompromising. And Julian found that he could not care less that Wexler had won. Of course this protagonist without a single bad characteristic won in the end. He hadn’t stumbled once. Hadn’t questioned himself or been doubted. Hadn’t recognized his own shortcomings and done anything to fix them. He’d just won. Wasn’t that the dream? Didn’t people want to read about someone they aspired to be? Julian did.
Normally.
But the ending left him totally empty.
Julian had been writing the man he wanted to be. A brave man. But there was no satisfaction in winning without the losses that came first. There was no bravery when victory was a given.
A hero with serious flaws and even weaknesses . . . could still be a hero. A person could only be brave if failing was a possibility.
