Page 41 of Ignition Rites
I almost smile.
He doesn’t.
“You think this is simple,” he says.
“I think absolutely none of this is simple.”
“You’re with her now.”
The sentence sounds like it hurts him.
“That’s a thing. That’s real. Everybody out there saw it be real.” His voice catches, barely, and the fact that he lets me hear it costs more than yelling would. “And you’re still…”
He stops.
When he starts again, his voice is quieter.
“What does that make us, Rafe? What am I supposed to call whatever we still are if you’re out there kissing her in front of God and everybody?”
For six years we’ve been experts at answering that question without answering it: best friends when anybody asks, brothers when it’s useful, idiots according to Nico, nothing when somebody gets too close, and everything when there’s nobody around to name it.
“I don’t know what to call us,” I say. “Never have.”
His eyes drop.
“But I’m not trying to erase you to have her.”
“That’s easy for you to say.”
“Probably.”
“You’re not the one standing here feeling like an afterthought.”
“You’re not an afterthought.”
I step closer.
Ash doesn’t move.
“You have never been an afterthought. I just didn’t know how to do both out loud, so I did the easier one first.”
“That’s not fair to either of us.”
“No.”
The pits are emptying around us. Engines cool. Another heat starts somewhere beyond the barriers.
Ash looks tired now instead of angry.
Somehow that gets under my skin more.
“I’m not asking you to fix it tonight,” he says. “I just needed you to know it’s not nothing. What you did out there. What you’re doing with her.”
His eyes hold mine.
“And whatever the fuck this is with us.”
“I know.”
