Ignite Me - Tahereh Mafi Page 0,78

extremely intense exercise that requires me to be wholly in control of myself.

But now, it’s one of my favorite games.

I can stop and crush anything in the air. From any distance across the room. All I need are my hands to control the energy. I can move my own power in any direction, focusing it on small objects and then widening the scope for a larger mass.

I can move everything in the training room now. Nothing is difficult anymore.

Kenji thinks I need a new challenge.

“I want to take her outside,” Kenji says. He’s talking directly to Warner—so casually—something that’s still strange for me to see. “I think she needs to start experimenting with natural materials. We’re too limited in here.”

Warner looks at me. “What do you think?”

“Will it be safe?” I ask.

“Well,” he says, “it doesn’t really matter, does it? In one week we’ll be outing ourselves anyway.”

“Good point.” I try to smile.

Adam has been unusually quiet these past couple weeks.

I don’t know if it’s because Kenji talked to him and told him to be careful, or if it’s because he’s really resigned himself to this situation. Maybe he’s realized there’s nothing romantic happening between me and Warner. Which both pleases and disappoints me.

Warner and I seem to have reached some kind of understanding. A civil, oddly formal relationship that balances precariously between friendship and something else that has never been defined.

I can’t say I enjoy it.

Adam doesn’t interfere, however, when James speaks to Warner, and Kenji told me it’s because Adam doesn’t want to traumatize James by giving him a reason to be afraid of living here.

Which means James is constantly talking to Warner.

He’s a curious kid, and Warner is so naturally private that he’s the most obvious target for James’s questions. Their exchanges are always entertaining for all of us. James is thoroughly unapologetic, and bolder than most anyone would ever be when talking to Warner.

It’s kind of cute, actually.

Other than that, everyone has been progressing well. Brendan and Winston are back to perfect, Castle is in better spirits every day, and Lily is a self-sufficient kind of girl who doesn’t need much to be entertained—though she and Ian seem to have found a sort of solace in each other’s company.

I suppose it makes sense that this kind of isolation would bring people together.

Like Adam and Alia.

He’s been spending a lot of time with her lately, and I don’t know what that means; it might be nothing more than friendship. But for most of the time I’ve been down in the training room, I’ve seen him sitting next her, just watching her sketch, asking the occasional question.

She’s always blushing.

In some ways, she reminds me a lot of how I used to be.

I adore Alia, but sometimes watching them together makes me wonder if this is what Adam’s always wanted. A sweet, quiet, gentle girl. Someone who would compensate for all the roughness he’s seen in his life. He said that to me once, I remember. He said he loved that about me. That I was so good. So sweet. That I was the only good thing left in this world.

I think I always knew that wasn’t true.

Maybe he’s starting to see it, too.

FORTY-SIX

“I have to visit my mother today.”

These are the seven words that begin our morning.

Warner has just walked out of his office, his hair a golden mess around his head, his eyes so green and so simultaneously transparent that they defy true description. He hasn’t bothered to button his rumpled shirt and his slacks are unbelted and hanging low on his waist. He looks completely disoriented. I don’t think he’s slept all night and I want so desperately to know what’s been happening in his life but I know it’s not my place to ask. Worse still, I know he wouldn’t even tell me if I did.

There’s no level of intimacy between us anymore.

Everything was moving so quickly between us and then it halted to a complete stop. All those thoughts and feelings and emotions frozen in place. And now I’m so afraid that if I make the wrong move, everything will break.

But I miss him.

He stands in front of me every day and I train with him and work alongside him like a colleague and it’s not enough for me anymore. I miss our easy conversations, his open smiles, the way he always used to meet my eyes.

I miss him.

And I need to talk to him, but I don’t know how. Or when. Or what