Free Trust Me, I'm Trouble by Mary Elizabeth Summer

become completely twisted in their heads.

    “Can you talk to them?” I ask Dani, grasping at straws. “Make them see I’m not who they think I am?”
    She looks at me, her eyes unreadable. “Why would I do that? They have hope. Is it wrong for them to hold on to that for a while at least?”
    “I didn’t really save them, Dani. They’re better off, yes, but they’re still shackled to the system. They’re still not free.”
    Dani stares at me for a long, silent moment. See? This is why I felt insecure when I asked her to translate the inscription for me. I knew it was going to get awkward.
    She edges a step closer like she can’t help herself, though she’s careful not to touch me. “You grifters value your freedom above all other things,” she says. “But freedom is not the only gift there is. These girls appreciate you for the gift you gave them, not the gifts you could not.”
    I wish I had the luxury of looking at it that way. I’m not a good person, much less a saint. Letting them believe that I am feels like a lie I can’t live with. Which is saying something, since I live with a lot of lies.
    My gaze flicks up to Dani’s and is caught like a fly in honey. I have the strangest feeling just north of my solar plexus, like a cross between a magnetic pull and a spike of adrenaline. I can’t tell what she’s feeling, as usual, but there’s something about her, something different. Her short blond hair and white skin are practically glowing in the sunlight that’s streaming through the bay window, which makes her look the part of saint much more convincingly than me. But that’s not what’s causing my breath to stutter, to stop. That’s not what’s drawing us toward a cliff, not touching but barely an inch apart. I wish—

    “Hello, girls.” Angela’s voice comes from behind a couple of paper grocery bags. “Help me with the rest?”
    And just like that, the connection snaps. My heart starts pumping again, faster to make up for lost time. I move past Angela at a pace just shy of running.
    Later that night, I’m circling the drain of studying for my environmental science exam when I finally give up and chuck the book at the unfortunate desk chair. I can’t get that scene with Dani out of my head. What the hell is wrong with me? Didn’t I learn my lesson with Tyler and Sam? Caring too much is a one-way ticket to graveyards and good-byes.
    Tomorrow is the vigil for Tyler, and still, after seven long months, I’m not sure how I feel. Did I love him? Honestly, I don’t know. I loved the idea of him. I could easily have fallen in love with him if I’d had the chance to get to know him without bullets and bad guys dogging us at every turn. Mostly, I feel the lack of him where he should have been. I should have been able to yell at him for betraying me. I should have gotten to key his car and frame him for some petty theft so he’d have to spend a night in jail. I should have had months to get over my anger and forgive him, to hear him explain. Instead I had minutes. And then anguish. And then nightmares.
    I’ll never get to sleep at this rate.
    “I miss you,” I say to no one.

    • • •
    After an exhausting night of not being able to sleep, I have an exhausting day of forcing myself to stay awake. This is not helped by the fact that I’m not allowed at the Ballou. I begged Dani to take me there on the way to school, but she is a soulless herbal-tea drinker and doesn’t understand the imperative of caffeine in the morning. By three o’clock in the afternoon, I’m about to take Lily up on her offer of an espresso machine for such emergencies.
    “Looks like you went about five rounds with a Glaakmaar monster and lost,” Murphy says as he comes upon me lying lengthwise across the overstuffed couch in the lobby.
    I yawn, my jaw cracking with the intensity of it, and then tug my hair from a knotted ponytail into a half-assed French braid.
    “Better?” I say.
    “Ish,” he