I just want to sit down. I just want to go home. I just want to be anywhere but here.
“Hey,” Hudson says, and his voice is nearly as hoarse as Jaxon’s and mine. Then again, he did do a lot of shouting there in the cave. “You’ve got this. It’s just a little farther, and then you can sit for a few minutes and just breathe, right? You and Jaxon can get your second winds.”
“Pretty sure you mean our fourth winds,” I comment, but I take a deep breath and tell myself that he’s right. That we can do this. It’s only for a little while and then it’s over. I can do anything for a little while. Even pretend that I’m not racked with guilt over Xavier’s death.
But as we start down the final hill between the arena and us, Jaxon tells me, “We need to come up with a better plan for what we’re going to do in there.”
I glance his way. “I don’t know that we can. Yes, we planned on using a lot of the portals, but you’re probably not in good enough shape for it. The one I did during the game took a lot out of me.”
He nods. “You know, I hadn’t really talked to you about what I planned on doing in the Trial, but I was going to try to get it all the way down the field in one turn. Nuri held the comet for nearly five minutes. I figured I could do close to that, and then you wouldn’t have to worry—”
“My pretty little head?” I ask as shock and outrage rip through me.
“What?” he asks, looking confused.
“You don’t want me to have to worry my pretty little head about anything as strenuous as actually participating in the Trial that I called for?”
“Uh-oh,” Hudson says faintly in the back of my head, but I’m not paying attention to him right now.
“That’s not what I said.” Jaxon eyes me warily.
“Maybe not, but it’s what you meant, right? What did you think was going to happen in that arena, Jaxon? Did you think I was just going to sit back and let you do your thing while I just hung out and cheered? I mean, should I have brought pom-poms?”
“Hey! That’s my line!” Hudson complains, but there’s a little bit of glee in his voice when he says it.
“I didn’t mean it the way you’re taking it,” Jaxon says, and he sounds pissed for the first time.
“Okay, that’s fair.” I stop hobbling forward and just wait. “How did you mean it?”
“Really?” he asks, and the wariness is more pronounced now.
“Absolutely,” I tell him. “If I took it wrong, then I’m sorry. But I would like to know what you meant.”
He sighs, runs a shaky hand through his hair. “All I meant was I’m trying to take care of you, Grace. I’m stronger than you and I can do more, so let me do more. There’s nothing wrong with me taking care of my girlfriend.”
“You mean your human girlfriend, don’t you?” I ask, eyebrow raised.
“Maybe I did. What’s wrong with that?” He throws his free hand up. “What’s wrong with me wanting to take care of you?”
“Nothing,” I answer. “Except with you it’s a sickness. And I think it’s a symptom of something a lot more problematic in our relationship.”
“Problematic?” Now he looks more than just a little bit pissed. “What does that mean?”
“It means you think I’m weaker than you and that means you have to—”
“You are weaker than me!” he roars, cutting me off. “It’s a fact.”
“Oh, really?” I shrug his arm off, step away, and he almost falls flat on his ass. “Because right now it looks like you need me a lot more than I need you.”
His eyes turn to pure, flat black. “Are you making fun of me for being exhausted after everything I just did in that cave?”
I take a deep breath and force myself not to yell at him even though I really, really want to right now. Because Jaxon just isn’t getting it. For the first time, I’m a little afraid, because maybe he can’t get it. Maybe he’ll never get it. And then what will we do?
“No, I’m making fun of you because you don’t seem to understand that we need to take care of each other,” I tell him, backing up a few feet because I just can’t be near him right now. “That sometimes I need help—”
“I know that—”
“Oh, I know you know that. You’re super impressive at reminding me of all the things I can’t do, of all the ways I’m weaker than you.” I pause, my voice breaking. “Of all the ways my opinion doesn’t matter to you.”
“I’ve never said that.” Jaxon staggers a little bit as he tries to close the distance between us. “You know I ask your opinion all the time.”
“That’s just it,” I tell him. “You don’t. You tell me what you think. I try to tell you what I think. And then you do what you want to do anyway. Maybe it doesn’t happen that way all the time, but it happens that way at least eighty percent of the time.
“You don’t tell me something because you’re afraid it will worry or hurt me. You don’t listen to me, because you don’t think I’ll understand. You always want to solve a problem for me, because the frail human can’t survive having to do it herself.”
“What’s wrong with wanting to take care of my girlfriend?” he growls. “I lost you for four months. What’s wrong with me trying to make sure nothing else happens to you—”
“Because you didn’t lose me. I saved you, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“By nearly dying,” he shoots back, and he looks anguished, his face contorted, his hands clenched into fists. “Do you know what that felt like? To stand there in that hallway with you turned to stone, completely out of my reach, and to know it happened because I didn’t protect you well enough? To know that you nearly died in the tunnels, because I was naïve enough to drink that damn tea from Lia? To know that you were stuck with my brother for three and a half months because I couldn’t reach you, couldn’t—”
“Save me?” I finish his thought for him. “That’s the whole point. It’s not your job to save me. Maybe it’s our job to save each other. But you’re never going to give me that chance. Because in your head, I’m still the frail little human who came to Katmere Academy back in November.”
“You are human. You are—”
“No!” I tell him, and this time I get right up in his face to say it. “I’m not human. Or at least, I’m not only human. I’m a gargoyle, and I can do a lot of cool shit. Maybe I can’t shake the earth like you can, but I can turn you to stone right now if I wanted to. I can fly as high as you. And I can take a hell of a beating and keep coming.”