Read Online Those That Wake 02: What We Become by Jesse Karp - Free Book Online

of electric hatred. But she knew not to go searching through those memories too closely now. She was fighting hard to avoid a resurgence of those problems that had plagued her first few months at Vassar, problems that were just now coming to a head. With Josh. Her latest breakup.
    She sat at their favorite bench on the round, her black hair tied in a tight ponytail, sticking out from under her father’s Mets cap; a little moral support for a girl diving into weird, unknown waters by sheer instinct. She was careful not to wear anything Josh particularly liked—no tight, white tank top, no capri jeans with the psychedelic flowers up the side—just a blue T-shirt and jeans. She wasn’t his great love; she was just some girl about to break up with him, that he’d moon over for a bit, then remember fondly, and eventually let go of. But she was sitting on their favorite bench, just the same, to acknowledge that they had something good for a while.
    He jogged up breathless, fifteen minutes late. She had spent the time, unaware of it, searching through her own spinning head.
    “It was Professor Garner.” He had his famous lopsided “I’m a dope” grin when he sat down and explained, giving her a swift kiss on the cheek. “He held me after class for a couple of minutes.”
    Her attention focused around that comment, and she turned her eyes on him. She had bright blue eyes; they almost seemed to glow at her from the mirror in the half-light sometimes. She fancied sometimes that they dimmed, grew dark when she was angry or her mood had darkened.
    “Why did he do that?” Her voice was more penetrating than she’d intended.
    “Oh, it was nothing. He just had . . .” Josh was looking sheepish. He had been, since she’d known him, an awful liar. “All right. He caught me on a call during class. These cellpatches are so easy to use, you almost can’t help it. Guess I need a little more practice with the subvocalizing, though.”
    Laura looked down, shaking her head.
    “Oh, come on. It’s a new toy. I was just playing around.”
    She was one to talk. She hadn’t even attended a class since yesterday morning. She could feel the weight of the work piling up and inexplicably, miraculously, didn’t care, which was not like her at all.
    “I know.” She looked straight into his eyes. “Josh. We can’t do this anymore.” Right there, out with it, quick and simple like a solid cross to the face rather than a slow and painful series of gut shots. And why was it so violent in her head? Had she taken up boxing in her sleep or something?
    Josh closed and widened his eyes at the same time. The lids slowly opened in sheer astonishment.
    “Are you—what? Is this . . .” His head was spinning; she would swear she could actually see it. “Are you, like, breaking up with me?”
    Students walked by on the path, their faces bright, oblivious.
    “Yes.” Her voice was small. What else was there to say?
    “Because of this?” He touched the metallic dot at his temple.
    “No, Josh. No, of course not.”
    “Because I’ll get rid of the goddamned thing. Laura, you are so important to—”
    “Don’t, Josh. Please don’t. You
should
get rid of the thing, if you even can. It’s going to, I don’t know, hollow you out.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    She wasn’t even sure herself.
    “You should get rid of it, but that’s not what this is about.”
    “What, then? Please tell me, Laura. I know we can work this out.”
    “We can’t.” Sure, definite. Like the slap in the face for Ari. You needed to be clear where you stood for everyone’s good. “This is not about the kind of person you are, Josh.”
    “You’re not going to say that this is about you, not me, right?”
    She was. She was going to say that, God help her.
    “Josh, there’s something going on with me, and it’s—”
    “I know. I can see that. That’s what I’m here for, to help you with what’s going on. If something is going on with you,