Part 29 (1/2)

”Scared,” I said, the word coming out shaky.

His eyes flicked to mine. ”That's not you,” he said. Then he walked out of the gate and away from me.

I guess this really was the end.

I sat there and told myself I wouldn't do anything until someone else came to the gate. Made a weird game of staying put. It was a good excuse, but the truth was my body hurt too much to move. It was the ache I'd felt at the clinic, multiplied exponentially, and I knew it was because I'd lost something I wouldn't have the chance to care about-again.

After ten minutes, I finally got up and went into the bathroom to splash cold water on my face.

The bathroom was empty. Good news, considering I couldn't deny it was possible that I went in there to do more than splash cold water on my face. I felt like maybe I was going to cry.

I stared at myself in the mirror, trying to fight the sting. It had been a long time since I really looked at myself. Even at the hotel I scurried out of the bathroom after brus.h.i.+ng my hair, probably because I was afraid to. Afraid of seeing the girl I had become. I'd turned pale, thin, certainly not someone who had been in the wilderness for a month. Honestly, I looked more like someone who had been underground for thirty days.

I turned on the cold water and cupped it with my hands. So cold it hurt. I splashed it on my face, once, twice. I gulped handfuls of it. It dripped all over the front of my T-s.h.i.+rt. My wet chest burned in the air conditioning. This was the end. I might have been able to deal with that if I wasn't facing the beginning ahead of me alone.

Without Ben.

I was jolted by a male voice behind me. ”What are you doing in here?”

I turned and found a policeman standing in the middle of the bathroom, hand on his holster.

My first thought: Oh s.h.i.+t, not again. My second thought: This is a women's restroom and he is a man.

My third thought: Maybe he will take me somewhere and I won't have to go home.

”Was.h.i.+ng my face,” I said, indicating the running faucet, my wet skin and s.h.i.+rt.

”Didn't you hear the announcement over the loudspeakers?” he asked, glancing behind me at the still running water. I took that as a cue to turn it off.

”Announcement?” I asked.

He grimaced, which meant he wanted an answer, not a question.

”No,” I said, looking up. There were no speakers in the bathroom that I could see.

”You can't be in here. The whole airport is being evacuated,” he said, staring at me with cop eyes-anger with a touch of superiority.

”What?” I asked, still not understanding.

”Get moving,” he said, not explaining, and waved his hand in a pushy scoot.

”Why are we being evacuated?” I asked. This was too weird. Too much like what I'd wanted so badly to come true that I couldn't even believe it.

”Less questions, more moving,” he said, then added, ”Don't make me tell you again,” for emphasis, just like Rawe would have. I walked out into the terminal while he stayed behind in the bathroom looking for feet under stall doors.

The large hallways that lined the gates were filled with people streaming toward the exits. They weren't running but were definitely walking with purpose. It was organized chaos, people flowing out of the building, asking the same question I had with no answers. Policemen on megaphones and the overhead announcements were telling everyone to leave in an orderly fas.h.i.+on and that all their questions would be answered once they were safely outside.

Safely outside?

What was unsafe about being inside? I guess it wasn't an earthquake.

I couldn't help thinking about those alien movies my brother loved. This was what they did when the s.p.a.ce monsters came: rounded everyone up and forced them into pens like cattle. The thing was, unlike the scared and confused people around me, I didn't really care what had happened. I was glad to be doing anything other than waiting for my flight.

Other than thinking about Ben.

Aliens?

Sounds good to me.

Lab tests?

Sure thing, let me just bend over.

I followed everyone else out into the sunlight. The policemen had us line up in the parking lot like we were at school and had just had a fire drill.

Cops stood around the perimeter of the building along with TSA agents, their uniforms looking very navy and the emergency lights on their cars flas.h.i.+ng very red and blue. Two officers were stringing yellow crime scene tape over the entrances. Two more had German shepherds on leashes sniffing around the pa.s.senger drop off area. Whatever had happened, it was major.

Alien major.

I heard two businessmen talking in line behind me, b.i.t.c.hing about how they better not miss their flight because of this, something about a very important meeting with a very important client that would f.u.c.k up their very important life if they missed it. I could almost hear them sweating through their suits.

”I'm going to a.s.s rape whoever is responsible for this. I cannot miss this flight,” one of them said.

The other one just said, Mmm hmmm. About as sad an agreement to someone's statement as I'd ever heard.

I was probably the only person in this whole airport who wasn't thinking what the guy behind me was thinking. Who was instead thinking the exact opposite-well, minus the a.s.s rape part.

It was possible Ben was thinking it, too, or he could have finally decided he was so done with me that he wanted to get as far away as possible. I deserved it. He'd done everything he could to make things work and all I did was push him away.

”We meet again,” he said, walking up next to me.

I almost jumped, so freaked out that I had just been thinking about him and he appeared. Though I had really been thinking about him since he'd left me at the gate.

”I already said good-bye.” I was trying very hard to be the old Ca.s.sie, but he'd seen the new me, the girl whose layers had been stripped away like onion skin, who kissed back, who smiled, who slept next to him under oceans of stars. Who couldn't really say good-bye.

”Not properly,” he said, tapping his thumb ring against my hand. ”I really didn't like the way that went down.”

”So does that mean we're saying good-bye again?” I asked, not telling him to move his hand. Liking the way the metal of his ring still felt cold from the air conditioning while his skin felt hot.

”Well, maybe not,” he said, still tapping his thumb ring but not taking my hand, like he was testing me. Maybe he was. There was something about the way he kept trying. There weren't many boys who could deal with my bulls.h.i.+t and still want more.

”So what are we doing?” I asked.

”Good question,” he said. ”I guess we'll find out.” His eyes moved to the front of the airport, scanning the nodding cops and the TSA agents standing like columns on a building.

”What does that mean?” I asked.