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Confusion. Boredom. Two emotions that mixed neatly together in this perfect little package of his head. And Jen, joining both of them, dancing with every aspect of him he'd so treasured. His solitude. His ambiguity. His darkness.
Not that he was truly dark by nature. He wasn't the sort of guy you see that wanted to cut himself up -- no, that was already taken care of by forces that were quite beyond his control.
And why was he sitting here in a shady corner of medlab? He was waiting, but he didn't know what for. Maybe for Jen and Alison to finish their conversation. He wanted to ignore the bloody link the former had set up -- he didn't even know how she'd done it. He didn't even know why she'd done it. Oh, sure, she had some sort of schoolgirl crush on him. That much he knew, but couldn't understand, either. There was no reason to like him like that, he wasn't the sort of guy girls fell in love with. He used to be, though. Before.
But that was before. Not now. Now he was even more confused than he'd ever been. He heard Jen's thoughts without even trying to, and they were accompanied by dizzying waves of pure emotion that often sent him reeling. He hadn't known it was possible for one person to feel so much. Her emotions -- when she broadcast them to him, and didn't even know it -- he was almost compelled to feel something for her.
Almost.
Because this monster didn't love. This monster couldn't love. He couldn't possibly give Jen what he couldn't give Paige. Or anyone else. Granted, he'd had feelings for Paige -- that much was true. He could never tell her that, though, because ...
... because ...
Well, could he possibly think of a good reason?
No. But that didn't mean he had to tell her.
Did it?
He shook his head. It wouldn't work. It would never work. Relationships just weren't his thing.
Besides, he didn't have feelings for her anymore. It was over. It had been over since he'd made the decision to walk away from her house last Thanksgiving. And he could never go back.
No matter how much he wanted to.
Besides, he couldn't hurt Jen. Or Alison. And he knew that by ... by dredging up the monsters that were contained in Paige, he would hurt both of them. He didn't want to hurt anyone -- he'd been hurt too much, himself.
Maybe that was why he simply sat there.
Waiting.
For God only knew what.
A bolt of lightning to come down and strike him dead?
No, it would only hurt all three of them, and the rest of the student body besides. But something.
An awakening.
He looked around at the people sleeping about the medlab, for whatever reasons they were stuck down here, too. They could leave, though; whenever they wanted to, they could just get up and leave. He couldn't leave. He was stuck here. Stuck --
-- stuck in place and in desperate need of some sort of motivation. Round and round, a catch-22: couldn't love Jen because he couldn't love Paige, couldn't love Paige because he'd only hurt Jen. But he didn't love Jen. He wasn't sure if he even liked her after what she'd done. Wouldn't it be okay to hurt her, just this once?
No. Not even after she'd gone and linked him without his asking. Pain inflicted upon others was never justified. He knew too much pain himself. So no -- hurting anyone was completely out of the question.
Stagnant.
That's what he was, stagnant. Rotting. Like his corpse of flesh that surrounded the rest of him.
He prayed for a liberation.
Maybe he was dreaming and he could wake up sometime soon. No -- that hadn't worked with the bloody pooka and it wouldn't work now, either. He only wished for freedom. So he might get out of this bloody hole he'd dug himself into.
Out of this bloody hole that had dug itself into him.
The girl Alison came out of the tiny room he had put Jen in. wasn't contagious, but ... he'd put her there. He thought maybe he'd put her in there so she'd be more comfortable. She seemed to like being alone.
Just like him, eh?
Alison stepped over the sleeping bodies on the floor, carrying his jacket. "Here," she said, handing it to him.
What was this, Jen didn't want it? She'd been cold last night, she hadn't hidden that factor at all, and her discomfort had been plain over the link. He hadn't needed his jacket, and she did. It was as simple as that. Now she didn't want it anymore, like his friendliness was -- unwanted. Like he was unwanted. He probably was.
Unwanted.
He longed for that liberation.
