“If you leave, you’ll lose me,” she told him. “I’ll get out of the city and you’ll never see me again. Think about how that makes you feel, really think about it, Abel.” She stepped closer to him. “Think about you and I dancing at that ball, and think about us waking up hungover and achy but laughing it off anyway because we were with each other. Think about us in the hammock in the house and think about the most perfect beanbag chair.”
This last comment seemed to make her break a little, and she stepped back as if he had hit her. “You know me,” she told him quietly. “You know me better than anyone.”
She shook her head, approaching him. “You don’t want numbness, Abel,” she said, looking like she might have been crying too. “You want to feel. You want to be alive.”
“I know,” she told him, coming closer. “It hurts. It hurts because you know that something isn’t right. You just tried to kill me, Abel. There is no universe where that makes sense.”
He was quiet. A loud whistle blew in the distance, and he looked over, seeming conflicted to to leave.
She looked at him, her shoulders hunched. “Please don’t go,” she told him quietly. “Please don’t leave me.”
“Come with me,” she told him gently, offering her hand. “You’re supposed to be following me anyway to kill me. At least when you come with me, you can monitor my location.”
She led him to a small nook on a rooftop across town. She folded her hands as she turned to look at him, her brows furrowed.
