“Oh God, Nix, if this is going to be some kind of ‘in case we die’ speech . . .”
She smiled. “Not really. I want to confess something.”
Benny tensed, pretty sure that he didn’t want to hear anything that followed that kind of an opening. But his mouth said, “Okay.”
“After Tom died, after we left Gameland . . . I think I stopped being in love with you.”
“Nix, please, I—”
“Let me finish, Benny . . . please.” She looked at him with those intelligent green eyes that were always so full of mystery and magic to him. “Out there in the desert I realized that we fell in love too fast. No, don’t say it . . . I know it was going in that direction for a long time. Since we were like, I don’t know—ten, I think. At least for me. But when we were in the mountains, when we were all alone up in that forest ranger tower, I think I fell in love with who I always imagined you were. Not with who you were. Do you understand?”
He wanted to say that he didn’t, and he wanted to get up and run away from this conversation. Instead he said, “Yes.” Very quietly. Because he did understand.
“I think you felt it too, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” he said. A whisper.
“It was all like being in a fairy tale or an old story of knights and castles. I was the princess; you were the prince. We were supposed to have a happily ever after, but that’s not how life is, is it?”
“No.”
He wished his mouth would stop agreeing with her. He did not want to agree. He did not want to speak.
“Then, all those months of training, getting ready to go, it was really all about running away. I was running away from my mom’s death. So was Tom. And I think he was running away from what he thought was his failure. He wasn’t able to save Mom’s life. And he was so tired of fighting. He kept trying to get the people in town—in our town and all the towns—to wake up and open their eyes. Tom had a good plan for defending the towns and building a militia so that everyone worked together for defense and to begin taking back the world. He left town because no one was listening to him and it was driving him crazy. And you, Benny . . . you left town for me.” She shook her head. “I think you left town because you thought you were supposed to. Because that’s what the romantic, heroic prince does for the princess.”
Benny said nothing.
“I’m an idiot for making you leave,” she said.
“You didn’t force anyone to go.”
She shrugged. “I could have made you stay. You and Tom. Can you look me in the eye and tell me that’s not true?”
He didn’t even try.
“After Gameland . . . I thought we fell in love again, but then things got hard and . . . I don’t know . . . the feeling wasn’t there. You felt it too, I could tell.”
“It came back,” he said.
“Did it? Or did we simply stop trying to force things? Once we got here, we thought we’d lost Lilah and Chong. Even when we got Lilah back, she wasn’t the same. She still isn’t. She’s regressed almost to where she was when we met her. Chong knows it too; you can see it in his eyes and hear it in his voice. He’s managing her, but she’s not really there.”
“Where are we going with this, Nix? ’Cause right now I don’t—”
“Shh. Just listen, okay? I’m trying not to be a hard-ass bitch for a change. No, don’t say anything and don’t, for God’s sake, defend me to me. I’m not a very nice person, Benny. Even I can’t stand myself most of the time. I know I get on your nerves sometimes. And I really don’t know how or why you put up with me.” She took a breath. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that something’s changed. Over the last day, something inside me has changed. I’m not little Nix Riley anymore. I’m not that girl. But at the same time I don’t know who I am. I know I’m stronger. Clearing out the compound with Lilah and Colonel Reid? Can you even imagine the Nix of a couple of months ago doing that? Now . . . I just do it. It’s part of my life. Swords and fighting and killing. That’s part of my life. If we survive this, I think it might still be part of my life. I’m never going to be the kind of girl who sits at home and raises babies, and I’m not going to work in the general store measuring out grain or bagging groceries. I’m an actual warrior, Benny. I like being a warrior. When I look at the future, all I can see is how I’m going to take back the land. If I have to clear out zoms, then I’ll do that. If I have to go after bounty hunters and outlaws, I’m going to do that, too. That’s who I am, Benny. Don’t laugh, but I think I’ve actually become what Tom was trying to make us. I’ve become a samurai, and I want to go on being a samurai. I want to use everything that I’ve learned to make things right. And I don’t want to put them back the way they were. I want to help make a brand-new world. That’s who I am, Benny.”
Benny nodded. “I know, Nix. I saw this coming.”
She studied his eyes, then nodded.
“So, where does that leave us?” he asked. Then he took in a breath and asked the hardest question in the world. “Do you still love me?”
Tears fell down her cheeks.
“I’ll always love you, Benny,” she said. “I just don’t know if I’m in love with you.”
She clutched his hand.
“Benny . . . please don’t hate me for telling the truth.”