Page 160 of The Company

My whole body shudders. But I shrug it off and blink at him. “I’d love nothing more than to go back to school and grow up like a normal kid. But if I do that, then we’re not promised anymore.”

He tisks his tongue and tightens his grip around me as I wriggle to break free. “Is that what you want?”

“I have no idea what I want. But what I don’t want is you telling me what to think or how to act. Or just assuming I’m going along with your plans every second of the day. I’m one half of this team so I expect to be treated like a partner.”

He leans down until his warm breath skates across my ear. “We are partners, Sash. In every sense of the word. You were given to me, so you’re mine. But I’m not putting up this big resistance as a pretense, you understand. I’m doing this to change the future for all the Company kids who come after us. So if you think I’m bound to that promise your father gave under duress when you were born, you’re wrong. I don’t need a promise to get a wife. I’m quite capable of getting married all on my own. So”—his hand slides around the back of my neck and his fingertips slip up into my hair, sending chills down my whole body—“let’s just forget that promise right now and be together because we like each other.”

He smiles as I stare dumbly up at him and then he laughs and lets go of my head. His fingers slip through my hair, dragging against the sensitive skin of my scalp. And then they are gone. “Sasha Cherlin, I have something cool to tell you. Do you want to hear it?”

I swallow. “Is it something good?”

He nods and smiles. “Yeah. Come sit.” He walks over to the edge of the bed and sits down, then pats the mattress for me to follow.

I sit, but not too close. I don’t really know what’s happening.

“I was bumming around up in the mountains in Wyoming. Way the fuck out by Bighorn Lake. You know it, right?”

I shoot him a look. “Everyone knows where Bighorn Lake is.”

He laughs. “So I was up there in the mountains and I was so fucking lost. But there was like this park access road, so I walked up this road to the top of a hill and do you know what was up there?”

I shake my head as I stare into his eyes. He’s excited to tell me this and that makes me excited with him. “What was it?”

“That medicine wheel thing you were talking about last summer. Remember that?”

My throat starts to sting and my eyes start to water. “I was just talking to James about that a few days ago.”

“Huh,” Nick says, smiling. “I saw it.” He looks over at me and then his hand grips my shoulder and he flops backwards on the bed, taking me with him. We sigh together. “It was pretty cool. You’re gonna love seeing it.”

“I’m not going,” I say quickly. “I don’t want to go.” He says nothing to that. Just lets the silence take over until I feel the need to explain. “My dad was gonna take me this summer. I don’t want to see it with anyone else.”

“Hmmm. I can see your point. I mean, your dad would probably be mad if you went without him, don’t you think?”

I tisk my tongue. “Just don’t.”

“What? That’s your reason, right?”

I stare up at the ceiling.

“Because I know your dad was like that. All pissy about you being happy without him.”

“I know it makes no sense to you, but it does to me. There’s just no one else I want to see it with.”

Nick turns his head to the side. “Sasha,” he says. I turn mine too, and our faces are but a few inches apart. “I love you.”

I feel the tears well up.

“I love you and I only want what’s best for you. I want you to go to school. And live in a house. And never pick up a gun again. I want you to wear dresses and go to dances. And have dates with boys who take you to eat hamburgers. I want you to study dinosaurs and travel the world looking for clues about the past that no one else cares about.”

He stops and swallows. Like he needs to build his courage up. Another tear streaks across my face until his fingertips intercept it just as it rounds my nose.

“And once you’ve done all that without me, you’re gonna realize that you can love more than once in a lifetime.”

“You’re going to be there with me,” I blurt as the tears pour out. “You’re my promise.”

He shakes his head. “The promise is over. You have to forget about it. You have to move forward and forget about it. And if your dad was here, he’d tell you to go see that medicine wheel.”

“We can go together, Nick. We can go up there together and you can show it to me.”