章 57: Chapter 57

“Answer me,” he says, and the smirk fades.

Alex says nothing for a moment more, before finally murmuring, “I am in your summers.”

Ryan thinks, What? So he says, “What?”

“I am part of your summers,” Alex says. “I’m part of this world, out here, in the middle of nowhere, with the sun and midnight wanderings and little secrets that don’t mean anything. I’m not part of that world: of your autumn or winter or spring. I’m not there.”

“But you could be.”

Alex says nothing.

“I want you to be,” Ryan says.

Alex says nothing, and Ryan scowls.

“You have to come with me,” he says, voice harder than it’s ever been with Alex. “You have to. I can’t just leave you here. What happens next time you get bounced off a coffee table, huh? What then?”

“The same as the first time I got bounced off a coffee table,” Alex says, patiently. “I existed before the village. Before the summers. I’m not going to disappear the moment you leave.”

“You could,” Ryan says. “And I don’t want you to.”