Chapter 21 - Maisie

I don’t mean for it to happen all at once; it just does.

Everything I’ve been through throughout this long, sticky summer—the days when the warm rain was infinitely louder than his silence, drowning out even the simple reality of his presence, or the nights spent dreaming of a world where he might someday tolerate me, the evenings when he commanded me and I was stupid and heartbroken enough to listen, even the moments when he truly did seem to love me—crashes upon me at once like a tidal wave. It soars over me, and its mass collapses me. I think I might fall to the floor. I feel like I’m floating above my body, looking down.

I feel my lips moving as I tell him to back off. I can’t hear the words over the high, loud buzzing in my ears of my panic, heartbreak, rage, confusion, all of it coming down on me all at once, an impossible force of momentum.

"Maisie," Zane's voice cuts through the static, rough, pleading. “Maisie, please, just let me—”

“No!” I snap, louder than I mean to.

My chest heaves, and I stumble backward, needing to get away from him, from his overwhelming presence. My mouth feels sour. I feel ruinous all of a sudden, destructive, crashing into everything we might have built. I’m coming down hard on it all.

"Stop! You don't get to—" My voice falters, but I force myself to keep going. “You don’t get to treat me like this. It’s all you ever do, and I’m so tired of it, Zane, I’m so tired. I can’t take it anymore.”

He freezes, confusion flashing in his eyes, quickly replaced by something darker—frustration, maybe even anger.

"I want you safe," he growls, his voice tight with barely restrained emotion. "I'm trying to protect you."

“Protect me?” I laugh bitterly, the sound tearing out of me like it’s clawing its way free. The rain streams down my face, mixing with tears I can’t hold back anymore. “From what, Zane? From myself? From you? Because it seems like all you’ve ever done is hold me at arm’s length, and tell me what to do, and tell me I couldn’t possibly understand, and then push me away the moment I’m too close for comfort. And then you think you can tell me what to do? No. Absolutely not. You don’t get to have that, Zane. You can’t control me; you can’t have me.”

He steps closer, his hand reaching out like he’s trying to calm me, but I jerk away, the words pouring out before I can stop them. I’ve started now; I can’t stop.

“I’m not a toy, Zane! I’m not some thing you get to decide you want and then drop when you don’t. I’m a person—I’m your person, your partner in this, if that even matters to you.”

“You’re being hysterical, Maisie,” he snaps, his eyes narrowing, his jaw clenched tight. “Everything I’ve done has been about trying to keep you safe. I care about you. I don’t want you getting hurt—”

“Well, congratulations!” I shout. My voice cracks. The rain is pouring so thickly now that I can feel it dripping off the end of my nose. “I’m already hurt, Zane. You hurt me every single day, and you don’t even see it!”

His face hardens, a dangerous flash of anger behind his eyes. “We both agreed to this. If you hated me so much, you didn’t have to come along. This isn’t all on me. Maybe you should take a look at your own choices—”

I stare at him, stunned, the words hitting me like a slap. "You think this is my fault? Zane, what could I have possibly done to deserve the way you’ve made me feel?"

My voice shakes. Zane reaches out his hand toward me, but I push it away, hard. There is still blood running down the side of my head, the heat of it cutting a line through the cold of the rain on my face.

"Don’t you dare make this about me,” I force out, jaw clenching around the words. “You reject me over and over, you decide what you want, and you take it, and then you change your mind and leave me in the cold. Sometimes, Zane, I really see something in you, something I could love, but then you vanish. I lose you. Every time. You think I don’t know what it’s like to be left to deal with your moods, your trauma? You think I don’t see how you only want me when it’s convenient for you?"

“Convenient for me?” He scoffs, running a hand through his soaked hair, exasperated. “You think this is easy for me? I’ve been doing everything I can to keep you from ending dead—”

“ Dead ,” I scoff, my heart pounding in my ears. "I can take care of myself. I took care of myself after the lake, didn’t I? You broke my heart, Zane, but I kept going."

His eyes flash with fury. He sweeps into my space, suddenly very close, hands hovering over me but not touching. He’s near enough that I can feel the heat of his breath against my face.

“It’s not my fault you can’t hold your alcohol,” he snaps.

The words hit me like a slap in the face. “Is that your excuse? For how you treated me, how you left me? You didn’t come back.” Overcome, I push my hand against his chest. “Zane, you never came back. You never said why .”

Despite myself, there is a sob at the edges of my voice.

His face pales in the shallow light. His black hair is plastered to his forehead, clothes soaked through. “You know nothing about what I’ve been through.”

“You’ve never explained yourself,” I snap, bulldozing forward, interrupting whatever he might have said next. “You never explained, I never understood why, and then I had to watch as you talked about how you could never be with someone like me, you could never love someone so big— imagine how that felt!”

The moment I’ve said it, I wish I could take it back. My face burns with shame and self-hatred. I realize I hate him, too. I’m crying openly again now, chest tight.

Zane’s eyes widen in shock. His hands reach for me, trying to brace me, but I pull away. “Maisie, no, that’s not—”

“Don’t,” I cut him off, my voice breaking, but I can’t stop. “Don’t try to explain it away. You said it. You think I’m not good enough for you. You think I’m disgusting. Good enough to sleep with once or twice in a pinch—some kind of a joke you’ll get to tell your friends about. But in the end, I’m something you get to discard when you’re finished. Well, you’re right about one thing: we’re finished.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he says, desperation creeping into his voice now. “You took it out of context. I swear, I—”

“Stop!” I beg, the rain and thunder crashing down around us like the sky itself is splitting open. “Just stop!”

Lightning crashes overhead. It illuminates Zane’s face, and I see it all at once—his desperation, his sorrow, his fear.

And he still doesn’t know.

The spell of our rage and hurt is broken. We stand, staring at each other, drenched and breathless. I can’t breathe. I can’t think.

And I can’t do this anymore.

“You think you know everything about me,” I whisper, my voice hoarse, broken. “But you don’t. You don’t know anything about what I’ve been going through. And now… now it’s too late.”

Zane’s eyes darken, his brows furrowed in confusion. “Maisie, what are you talking about?”

My throat tightens, and I force myself to meet his gaze, even though everything in me is screaming to run.

But he needs to know. He has to know. And I have to say it, because if I don’t say it now, I know I never will.

“I’m pregnant, Zane.”

I had imagined telling him. I’ve been dreaming of it. In some of my mind’s conjured versions of the occasion, he sweeps me into his arms and kisses me until I’m breathless. In others, he vanishes like smoke. I reach for him, but he slips through my fingers, dissolving as if he was never there in the first place.

Now, here, he doesn’t say anything.

He just stares at me, his eyes wide, his lips parted as if the words have knocked the breath out of him.

I wait for him to speak, to do something—anything—but he doesn’t.

Of course. I was stupid to expect anything more than the silence that now swallows me whole, thicker than the rain, heavier than the storm. The force of my want, my need, my desperation, is a towering presence inside me. I feel ferocious. Zane still stands frozen. It’s as if he’s no longer here.

And he isn’t. Maybe he never was at all.

Once a rogue, always a rogue, I think.

My hands drop to my stomach, and the impending truth of my new reality nearly crushes me. It hadn’t seemed real until now.

“I can’t trust you, Zane,” I say, my voice barely more than a whisper. In the storm, we’re almost invisible now, sheets of rain splitting us. The corners of his eyes tighten as if he’s in great pain. “I need someone who’s going to be there—really be there. And you’re not. You’re just not.”

He may want to argue. But we both know the truth. His silence is all the proof I need.

Without waiting for his response, I turn and walk away, my legs shaky beneath me, my heart heavy. The earth beneath my feet is slick with wet mud, but I don’t stop. I can’t look back. If I look back, then I’ll stay. And I can no longer stay.

I make it to the tree line. Zane doesn’t follow me.

The world is blurred like a watercolor painting, fuzzy with unreality. In the distance, the bright wash of the floodlights around the facility flickers. Keira is clearly at war with them, trying to disable the power remotely.

In the fluttering white glow, I spot the others sprinting toward the black van parked up out back, their forms blurred by the rain but moving with purpose. I count them and feel the anxiety loosen within me. Everyone made it out.

I wipe the rain and tears from my face. It’s over. My steps are slow but steady as I move toward them. Away from him. It’s over.

It’s over.