Chapter FortyFour-"The Rebound."

                                    

                                          
"Stop!" someone called after me because I absolutely fled. For not wanting to be this dramatic in the first place, I stopped running when I slid against the gravel outside. A flash of light appeared and then I was face-to-face with Demi. "You can't just run away from this."
                          
"Not with ya'll's super speed, I can't," I mumbled. The corners of her lips turned up, but mine did not. I was making a valid point, not telling a joke. "I don't need to be here anymore than Mickie does, so I'm leaving."
                          
All she did was shake her head slowly. 
                          
"Don't you see what you did back there—why all this is happening?" she asked with amazement in her voice. "It doesn't matter if what happened, happened because of you or not, but you need to be here for this."
                          
"I don't think you understand," I told her, slowly, which is what they should actually be telling me. Oh, hey, while you hate Mickie for making out with Dastan all these years, it was me falling in love with him and vice versa, apparently. 
                          
"I understand that Dastan loves you," she notified with the sun shining in her eyes. "That's exactly why you need to be with him right now."
                          
Was she crazy? Or stupid? Why was she the only one pushing us together right now?
                          
"You still don't understand."
                          
"I get it. You fell for Hayden and he fell for you, but it's Dastan who—"
                          
"It doesn't matter," a voice suddenly interrupted her. We looked back to see Dastan at the doorway. Physically, he looked tired and weak. However, his brown eyes pierced through me strong as ever. "You know how I feel about you, but it doesn't matter to you. I even told it right to your face—"
                          
"And which persona are you referring to?" I asked him, boldly as I walked up to him and got a foot away from him. "The jerk that bullied me as a way to express his feelings or the jerk that kept a hell of a good secret from me before confessing his feelings?"
                          
"Does it matter?" he asked, his rude Dastan Vega side seeping into his tone even though his body didn't even look like he was capable of that right now. "The fact is that no matter who I am or was or will be, I really love...I mean really...--"
                          
"Dastan! Get your ass back in here!" Con's voice bellowed, shaking the glass frame of the house. 
                          
"Stop!" Mateo said as I heard them come down the stairs. Dastan briefly closed his eyes in pain or fatigue or annoyance, but then they flashed open and he was intent on making his point. 
                          
"It's you who doesn't understand anything," he blamed me, having some sort of short-breath. I started to see his body quiver.  
                          
"DASTAN!" Con roared, closer to where I saw him hop down from the last step. Mateo slid down the banister and put his hands on Con's chest. However, something shocked through him and he was thrown on the ground somehow without being touched.
                          
"--Because no matter how well I knew you as Dastan or the Proliator, I thought you of all people would understand me, but you still don't!" he was now shouting at me with his eyes glazing with wetness. If he thought he was hurt in his own imagination, I was glad his powers didn't work with me; because then he'd feel my heart shattering right now. 
                          
"Oh no," I heard Demi gasp behind me. I looked up to Dastan and felt a tear stream down my cheek as his body now had a hazy feature. He was breathing heavily and he looked down at his hands, not knowing what was happening. 
                          
"Demi, you have to get to him!" Mateo's voice cried, but not before Con had reached the doorway and laid a hand on Dastan's trembling body. Suddenly, he stopped shaking altogether and his onyx eyes flashed up to mine before he coiled an arm around my waist and we vanished. As soon as the rush happened, it was over because the three of us were dropped onto a dusty road someplace. I looked around for Dastan, but only saw Con standing above me.