“Until I ascend.”
I feel the pang in my stomach again. That’s still there. Jared going away forever. He hasn’t told the others about this yet either. For now, it’s just me and him knowing. I finally understand what a burden a secret can be.
Tony Kim walks through some trees, sees us and comes over. Henna stands and throws her arms around him. “Thank God, you’re okay,” she says. He barely recovers his surprise in time to hug her back. “Come,” she says, taking his hand. “Sit with us.”
He sits down next to her on her graduation gown and they instantly fall into deep conversation.
Henna’s not going to Africa. She told me while we waited in the disaster-swollen line at the fast-food place. “I’m eighteen,” she said. “I realized they can’t actually make me. It was only a matter of willpower.” She shrugged. “I stayed nice through the whole thing. I never yelled or went crazy. I just said it was my last summer to see you, that the Central African Republic was too dangerous for any of us to go, and that I needed to start making important decisions for myself.”
“What’d they say?” I asked.
“What could they say? I was right.”
Strangely, the first reaction they had was to try for a compromise. They agreed the Central African Republic and its civil war was probably not the wisest choice, so how about Romania?
“Romania?” I said, surprised. “Does Romania need missionaries? Or foot specialists?”
“They’ve got the Romanian Orthodox Church and, as far as I know, hospitals. So, no, not really.
But they want to go anyway.”
“And?”
She smiled at me, more relaxed than I’ve ever seen her. “I said no.”
I watch her and Tony talk now. I watch the closeness they have. I watch the way he won’t stop looking into her eyes and she won’t stop looking into his and the way they touch each other here and there and I bet she’s got the desire feeling in her stomach for him. I bet he’s got it for her, too. Will they end up together and getting married? Who knows? But looking at them, I’m not even jealous.
I’m happy.
Which is the weirdest thing of all.
“That’s the guy!” we hear and see the still-alive Finn coming up with the girl who warned us all.
She gets all kinds of looks from people she passes, but she ignores them. They come straight over to Jared and she throws a hug around him. “Oof,” he says.
“You saved him,” she says. “That wasn’t supposed to happen, but you did.”
“She was going to have to sacrifice herself to save us,” Finn says. “But because of you, I could help her and we destroyed the fissures of the Immortals once and for all!”
There’s a silence.
“Am I allowed to say, What the hell are you talking about this time?” Steve asks.
“You know what?” Mel says. “All I really want to know is if it’s over.”
The girl, who I remember now is called Satchel – which explains why Finn was asking for a satchel earlier – blows out a long breath and nods. “Yeah,” she says. “It’s over.”
“Thank goodness,” Mel says, seriously.
Satchel and Finn stand there, looking a little lost.
“Where are the other indie kids?” I ask.
She looks confused. “The other who?”