Shadow Me (Shatter Me #4.5)(11)

“Yes,” Castle finally says, the sound of his voice refocusing my thoughts. “Perhaps we should give them the space they need.”

I shoot him an uncertain look. “You don’t think they’re good together, huh?”

Castle turns to me, surprised. “On the contrary,” he says. “I think they’re lucky to have found each other in this hellish world. But if they want a chance at happiness, they’ll have to continue to heal. Individually.” He turns away again, studies their figures in the distance. “I worry, sometimes, about the secrets between them. I want them to do the hard work of sucking out the poison from their past.”

“Gross.”

Castle smiles. “Indeed.” He wraps his arm around my shoulder. Squeezes. “My greatest wish for you,” he says, “is for you to see yourself the way that I do: as a brilliant, handsome, compassionate young man who would do anything for the people he loves.”

I pull back, surprised. “What made you say that?”

“It’s just something I’ve been reminding myself to say out loud.” He sighs. “I want you to understand that Nazeera is a very, very lucky girl to be the object of your affections. I wish you would realize that. She is accomplished and beautiful, yes, but you—”

“Wait. What?” I feel suddenly nauseous. “How did y—?”

“Oh,” Castle says, his eyes wide. “Oh, was it a secret? I didn’t realize it was a secret. My apologies.”

I grumble something foul.

He laughs. “I have to say, if you’re interested in keeping it to yourself, you might want to change your tactics.”

“What do you mean?”

He shrugs. “You don’t see yourself around her. Your feelings are obvious to everyone. From anywhere.”

I drop my head into my hands with a groan.

And when I finally look up, ready to respond, I’m so distracted by the scene in front of me that I forget to speak.

Warner and Juliette are having a moment.

A pretty passionate moment, right here, in the hall. I realize, as I watch them, that I’ve never seen them kiss before. I’m frozen. A little stunned. And I know I should, like, look away—I mean, I know in my head that I should? That it’s the decent thing to do? But I’m kind of fascinated.

They clearly have crazy chemistry.

Their relationship never made a lot of sense to me—I couldn’t understand how someone like Warner could be an emotional partner to anyone, much less someone like Juliette: a girl who eats, sleeps, and breathes emotion. I rarely saw him emote anything. I worried that Juliette was giving him too much credit, that she put up with too much of his bullshit in exchange for—I don’t even know what. A sociopath with an extensive coat collection?

Mostly, I worried that she wasn’t getting the kind of love she deserved.

But now, suddenly—

Their relationship makes sense. Suddenly everything she’s ever said to me about him makes sense. I still don’t think I understand Warner, but it’s obvious that something about her lights a fire in him. He looks alive when she’s in his arms. Human like I’ve never seen him before.

Like he’s in love.

And not only in love, but beyond salvation. When they break apart they both look a little crazy, but Warner looks especially unhinged. His body is shaking. And when she suddenly takes off running down the hall, I know this won’t end well.

My heart aches. For both of them.

I watch as Warner slumps back, against the wall, sinking into the stone until his limbs give out. He collapses onto the floor.

“I’ll talk to him,” Castle says, and the devastated look on his face surprises me. “You go find Ms. Ferrars. She shouldn’t be alone right now.”

I take a tight breath. “Got it.” And then: “Good luck.”

He only nods.

I have to pound on Juliette’s door a few times before she finally opens it. She cracks it open an inch, says, “Never mind,” and then tries to slam it closed.

I catch the door with my boot.

“Never mind what?” I lean my shoulder into the door, and with a little shove, I manage to squeeze my way inside. “What’s going on?”

She stalks across the room, as far away from me as she can get.

I don’t understand this. I don’t understand why she’s treating me like this. And I open my mouth to say exactly that when she says— “Never mind, I don’t want to talk to any of you. Please go away. Or maybe you can all go to hell. I don’t actually care.”

I flinch. Her words land like physical blows. She’s talking to me like I’m the enemy, and I can’t believe it. “Are you—wait, are you serious right now?”

“Nazeera and I are leaving for the symposium in an hour,” she snaps at me. She still won’t look at me, though. “I have to get ready.”

“What?” First of all, when the hell did she become best friends with Nazeera? And second of all: “What’s happening, J? What’s wrong with you?”

She spins around, her face a stunning caricature. She looks mutinous. “What’s wrong with me? Oh, like you don’t know?”

The force of her anger sends me a step back. I remind myself that this girl could probably kill me with the twitch of her hand if she wanted to. “I mean, I heard about what happened with Warner, yeah, but I’m pretty sure I just saw you guys making out in the hallway, so I’m, uh, really confused—”