“Well, he is pretty tough,” Rae said of her cousin. He was stronger than most people gave him credit for—even Rae sometimes. “Good at Judo and he's pretty quick. But he's, like... he's irresponsible sometimes. There was a time a month or so ago that he ran off to go back to the city and look for April. He didn't tell me or anything. Just left. And I was so scared, you know? That they'd taken him, that someone else...” that someone else I loved was leaving me, she didn't say the last part, but from what she'd told him, she was sure he knew. “He's a great kid, you know? Loves with his whole heart and I don't know where I'd be without him most of the time or anything, but... god, he's so exhausting sometimes.” She pursed her lips. “It's horrible of me to say this, isn't it?” she asked him.
Chuckling, Rae shoved him lightly with her shoulder. “You count,” she teased. “Actually...” she wet her lips, then pushed some of her hair from her face. “It should tell you, uh... how much you count. That I'm willing to let you see me like this. It's easy. Around you, I mean.” She didn't let many people see her at her worst. People saw her as this incessant ray of sunshine, but sometimes people forgot that even the sun went behind the clouds now and again. And it was hard to let people see her like that, when she knew what was expected of her. “I'd rather you be like... a telephone. Except one of those futuristic telephones where you can see who you're talking to.” She gave him a weak smile.
Did Luke do what he did on purpose? She shrugged and sighed a little bit. “Maybe he does. But it's okay, you know? It gives me something to focus on when EJ is napping and whatever else.” Something to take her mind off of things. Everything that had happened this past year. “He's an odd kid. I can't even figure him our most of the time.” She shook her head.
Was. Rae winced at that word. “Can we... can we not say was, please? There's... there's hope. We didn't find anything. He might still be...” she trailed off. Would that be better, or worse? If someone had taken him, what were they doing to him now? She shook that thought off and worried her lip in her mouth. “It's just hard knowing that... knowing that no matter what I try, I still lose everyone I love.” Her voice cracked a little in her attempts to hold back tears.
“My best is never enough,” she muttered, sniffling and swallowing thickly. She sighed, then looked up at him. “I don't mean to be like this. I can't... I just...”
Someone like you, well, they aren't meant to be alone. The words resonated, although it was still really hard to believe them. She looked at him, then down at the ground. “How can you say that?” she asked, blinking hard to try and push some tears back, but a few of them leaked out anyway. “I just... everyone... everyone leaves me. And maybe I'm not meant to be alone, but I don't... I don't know if I'm strong enough to keep losing people, Topher. It hurts more every time and having no one left... being alone, I don't... I just can't!” she half-shouted, and her voice echoed a little in the building.
Elliot. Rae sniffled a little more when she heard that name. And even though there was truth to what he was saying—yeah, they'd made their choices and they'd been what had done them in—it was still painful, thinking about everything she'd lost. She turned toward him, but didn't look up at him right away. The truth of his words and the ache of her own self-blame clashed, and added confusion to to the ache she felt, and all of a sudden, the flood gates opened. She wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his chest, and then the tears came...