Loveless Ages

Chapter Ten

You aren’t worth it. Those are four words I never thought Josh would say to me. His face was so calm as he said it, almost as though he didn’t care. His face had no expression on it. He looked like a statue. He spoke words but seemed unaffected by what he was saying. He doesn’t want it anymore. He doesn’t want the reversal and he doesn’t want me. He said I live in Malinda’s World and that I only think about what affects me. I only think about myself. He’s right. I am selfish and I am a terrible person and I should feel terrible. I hadn’t realized that people had died in that building until a man came over inviting Alexandria to his wife’s funeral. People died and they died because of me. They died because I wanted something and I was willing to do anything to get it, and now Josh has to live with that. He has to live knowing that he held that bomb in his hands and gave it to them. Now I know why he has been so quiet. I am worried about him though. He seemed as though he had fallen off of his rocker. As he spoke to me, he stared off into space and described to me exactly how Estelle must have died. He told me about what happened to her organs and her bones. His voice was lifeless. He told me that he was floating instead of feeling angry. What does that even mean?

I don’t know what I should do next. My whole reason for being here was to find the cure for Josh. I sacrificed everything for this. If he doesn’t want the cure then everything we did was for nothing. I walk back to the house alone and when I get there, I see Alexandria sitting on the porch with a cup of tea in her hand.

“Who is it that needs the reversal?” She asks me.

“Well it was Josh. But… he doesn’t want it anymore,” I inform her.

“And not you?”

“I’m unaffected by the original injection.”

“I figured,” she says with a slight smile on her face.

“What do you mean you figured?”

“I’m observant. That’s one of the qualities I have as an investigator. So observant in fact that I know that you are in love with someone,” she tells me.

“Yes, well, Josh will never love me so it doesn’t even matter anymore,” I tell her.

“I wasn’t referring to Josh. I was referring to Xander,” she says. I stare at her for a long moment.

“You think I’m in love with Xander?” I ask with skepticism.

“I’m confident that you’re in love with him,” she says.

“Why?”

“The first time I looked at you, you were on the ground outside of the building after it exploded. You were crying inconsolably,” Alexandria tilts her head to the side, “Why were you crying?” I swallow and consider the answer to her question. I know why I was crying.

“Because I thought he was dead,” I tell her.

“What was running through your mind as you sat there on the ground?” She asks me. I look down at the ground and remember the emotions that flooded every single part of my consciousness last night.

“I remember feeling paralyzed,” I whisper, “When I was little, my grandmother told me that unlike everyone else, I could get paralyzed with emotion. She told me that whenever things felt to intense to handle, to just breathe in, say a number, breathe out. From the time of the explosion to the time he appeared, I counted up to two hundred sixteen. They were the longest two hundred sixteen seconds of my life. I don’t know if that makes sense…”

“It makes sense,” she assures me.”

“Does that mean I love him?” I ask her.

“Does it?” She asks, “I don’t know. You tell me.” I sit beside her, not saying a word.