“It’s not charity,” I snap. “He cares about me—and I care about him!”
Warner nods, unimpressed. “You should get a dog, love. I hear they share much the same qualities.”
The reason he had to keep wiping their memories was because it didn’t matter how many times he reset the story or remade the introductions— Aaron always fell in love with her. Every time.
And I realize then, in a moment that terrifies me, that I want this, forever. I want to spend the rest of my life with her. I want to build a future with her. I want to grow old with her.
I want to marry her.
“I want to be the friend you fall hopelessly in love with. The one you take into your arms and into your bed and into the private world you keep trapped in your head. I want to be that kind of friend,” he says.
My memories collect and expand, exploding with renewed meaning as they assault me, all at once—
Ella through the ages.
My childhood friend.
Ella, ripped away from me when I was seven years old.
Killing my father has instilled in me an extraordinary serenity. It’s a perverse, horrible thing to celebrate, but to murder my father was to vanquish my greatest fear. With him dead, anything seems possible.
I feel free.
“I do not have friends,” he says.
“Why can’t you try?”
He shakes his head.
“Why? Why not give it a chance—”
“Because I am afraid,” he finally says, voice shaking, “that your friendship would be the end of me.”