The first thing I see when I open my eyes is Milo sprawled uncomfortably on the sling chair next to the bed. I’m not sure how he’s even breathing with his head tilted back in such an awkward position. My eyes travel down his arm to where his hand meets mine. He held my hand all night. I know I doubted him last night after Lance’s warning, but in this moment, I could never believe he would hurt me.
I am content to let him sleep as long as he wants, although I do consider moving him to the bed. Before I can take action Milo begins to stir. His eyes flutter open and find me. His tired smile makes it impossible for me to be anything other than grateful to him. Milo tries to sit up and winces. One hand rubs his neck vigorously, making me feel just a little guilty. He shakes it off, and I tug on his hand until he climbs up next to me. I lay my head on his shoulder, grateful for his nearness after such a terrible night.
Brushing my mangled curls out of my face is trickier than one might expect. It takes Milo a few tries to clear them enough to keep from getting a mouthful of hair. His cheek rests lightly against my temple, momentarily distracting me with thoughts of what he was going to say at the dance last night before Lance interrupted us. I want to ask, but there are other things weighing more heavily on my mind right now. I have a plan for today, and I want Milo with me, but I don’t think he’s going to like what I have to say.
“You stayed,” I say, surprising myself, because that wasn’t what I meant to start out with.
“You were crying. I couldn’t leave.” Milo’s holds onto me, but he feels stiff and uncertain.
“Oh, I didn’t realize,” I say. I never sleep well, but last night was particularly awful. I didn’t realize I let my pain show. An even deeper sense of gratitude fills me. “Thanks for staying with me, Milo.”
The tension he’s been holding melts away. His hands slide around me, and I’m almost sure his lips press lightly against my forehead. Goosebumps ripple across my body at what might have been an imagined touch. I want him to kiss me for real, but at the same time, I’m not sure I want to take that next step. Milo has been changing over the last couple of weeks. His strange controlling side makes me nervous, not to mention it bugs the heck out of me.
When he suddenly shifts into this softer, more caring Milo I don’t know what to think. It’s definitely nice, but where’s the sarcastic, couldn’t-care-less Milo I befriended in the first place? Not to mention I have some demons from my past to face down, Guardians and Seekers breathing down my neck, a destiny to figure out, and an ex-boyfriend who is confusing me more every time I see him. I’m afraid I’d just screw up a relationship right now, and I don’t want to hurt Milo.
“I was worried about you last night,” Milo says, interrupting my muddled thoughts. “You wouldn’t wake up, but you kept crying and sobbing. You wouldn’t respond to me at all.”
Imagining myself bawling on the bed while Milo sat by my side helpless to do anything makes my barriers against him crumble a little more. I feel bad for him, but picturing myself alone and crying upsets me as well. I’ve been alone since my dad died, but I had kind of hoped Milo was starting to fill that void. “Maybe, you could have…you know, sat by me or something.”
The corner of Milo’s mouth turns up in a guilty smile. “I did, actually. I spent most of the night with my arms around you. It didn’t help as much as I thought it would. I moved to the chair when you finally calmed down because I didn’t want to freak you out if you woke up next to me.”
I don’t think I would have minded that, actually, but I’m not going to admit it to him. I’m not sure how he’d react to that. He may want to stay every night if he was about to say what I think he was last night. A request like that would be hard to resist after realizing how he held me all night. Or, he might think I was pushing things way too far and go back to being completely vague about his feelings for me. Milo admitting he wanted to stay would definitely be nice, but his pulling back would keep things less complicated.
I can’t think of anything intelligent to say to him about that, so I opt for changing the subject. “I feel bad that you slept on that awful chair. Is your neck okay?”
“It’s fine. How are you feeling?” His eyes are actually filled with honest concern. I don’t remember crying last night, I don’t remember even coming home, but the dreams and nightmares are still painted in my mind. I don’t want to discuss it, but I can’t reward Milo’s vigilance and compassion by brushing him off.
I bite the inside of my cheek to help keep control of myself as the images and emotions come flooding back. “Part of me feels better now that I’ve told someone about what happened to my dad, but everything else from last night…I can’t keep it all inside. I know there are probably more important things I should be doing, but I have to talk to my mom.”
Milo frowns at the suggestion. “Libby, I really don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“I’m not asking you to come with me, Milo…”
“I won’t let you go alone,” he interrupts.
“She’s my mom. I’ve got to face her. I can’t even think about anything else right now. I’m so angry at her. For everything. I could get over her ditching me after my Inquest. I hated living with her anyway. I can’t get over her risking my dad’s life for her own ambitions. It kills me to know that I’m the one who took his life, but I never meant to hurt him. My mom, she gave him the idea. It’s her fault he’s dead. Maybe my dad will forgive me if we ever meet again, but I will never forgive my mom for what she’s done. I want her to hurt as much as I have for the past five years.”
Milo’s stares at me seriously. “Which is exactly why you shouldn’t confront her yet. Wait until you’ve calmed down. If things get out of hand, the reporters will hear about it and you’ll be taken away. That can’t happen. You need to wait.”
Taken away? That scares me more than I want to admit, but I shake my head at his argument. “I can’t, Milo. I think she’s keeping me from reaching the spirits. I have to do this.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t really know how far you’ve come with your Perception abilities because you never practice with me, but one of the first things I learned how to do with mine was trap my own emotions so no one else could sense them. I’ve been doing it so long, it’s automatic for me. But I realized at some point last night when my nightmares finally stopped that I’ll never be able to contact my spirit if I’m hiding parts of it. Those emotions are part of me, but they’re locked away so tightly that I can’t even get to them anymore.”
“Then why don’t you just…unlock them?” Milo asks.
“That’s what I’m going to do,” I say, “by confronting my mom. Letting me feel all of those pent up emotions isn’t going to do me any good if I can’t deal with them. I’ll just end up locking them back up. I have to face her.”
“Libby, I don’t like this. If this goes badly…”
“It won’t,” I argue. Then I think better of it. Free of any repercussions, I would definitely do something both painful and humiliating to my mom, if not something worse. “But if things do start going wrong while we’re there, I give you permission to stop me.”
Doubt twists his face into a scowl. “Stop you how? You’re the most powerful person on the planet, Libby. If you want to do something, I seriously doubt I’m going to be able to stop you.”
How could he stop me? Hmm…kissing me would definitely do it. Instead, I say, “I’m sure you’ll think of something.”
Milo scowls at me and gets up from the bed. He paces over to the window and pulls back the curtain in a habitual gesture. It’s the first time I notice that he isn’t wearing his dress shirt and slacks from last night. My head tilts to the side in confusion. Where did the t-shirt and sweatpants he’s wearing come from? A black duffle bag sitting next to the door finally registers in my mind.
“Where did that come from?” I ask as I walk over and point at the bag.
Milo looks at me and shrugs. “I stopped by my h
ouse last night. I know you liked the suit, but it would have been really uncomfortable to sleep in. Plus Celia was worried and kept texting me so I wanted to stop by and check on her.”
“You went by your house?” I ask. I would have liked to have seen where he lived even if I couldn’t go in.
“I was only there for a few minutes. You didn’t miss anything.”
“Still, I miss being able to go over to other people’s houses and hang out and meet their families,” I say.
Milo shakes his head at me. “You’ve already met Celia. My parents…you don’t want to meet them. I can’t even remember the last time I talked to them and didn’t end up in a yelling match. They’re something to avoid. Believe me.”
“Why?” I ask. I’m sidetracking myself, but I really want to know. “Why don’t you get along with your parents? Celia said it used to be different between you and them.”
Fear widens Milo’s pupils until the black swallows up his stormy grey irises. Anger joins the party soon after. “Celia was talking about me? What else did she say?”
“Nothing,” I say quickly. “She told me I’d have to ask you. So I am.”
“Good,” he says. I’m guessing the “good” was referring to Celia not spilling his secrets, and not that I asked him since he doesn’t bother to elaborate. I raise my eyebrows expectantly, waiting. Milo sees my expression, but the way his eyes dart away from me don’t give me much hope that I’m going to get an answer.
“I thought we were talking about your parents. We can talk about mine later. Why don’t you go take a shower so we can get this over with?” he says, though it’s comes out as more of a command than a question.
“Fine,” I say, heading for the bathroom. I’ll give him this one, but he’d better believe I’m going to come back to this.