Before I can speak, she disappears.

Blake and I stand in silence, letting his mother’s aura disappear from the room. It feels like she’s still watching us, and if we move too soon, she’ll know. Eventually, Blake turns, curtly, heading upstairs with heavy stomps that pulse out his frustration and hurt.

“Blake,” I say, hurrying to the base of the steps. “Blake, I’m s—”

“Don’t,” he orders, standing at the top of the steps, his back to me. He’s gripping the railing so tightly that I think his fingers might actually leave marks on the wood when he lets go.

“Did you not hear what your mom said? Did you not listen? I was trying to d—”

“I don’t care what the reason is!”

He turns so fast that he almost falls off the steps. Angry swatches of red cover his cheeks, and his eyes threaten tears, but he’s doing everything he can to hold them back, even if he is failing. This must be the McIntyre way.

He descends the steps again, standing at the bottom of them. There’s space between us, but it’s filled with his anger and his frustration, pulsing off him like fire off a heated ore.

“Did you even think before you jumped? How long have you been planning this? Did you consider who you’d hurt? What could go wrong? How you could die? Did you even care? That’s not romantic! That’s not sweet and generous! It’s selfish and stupid!”

Each sentence is like a knife, with pinpoint accuracy, reminding me with each word how I messed up. But it wasn’t just that—it was how I hurt him, how he felt like I betrayed him in some way. And that hurt more than the shame.

“I can understand, logically, what you thought you were doing,” Blake says while pacing back and forth. “But emotionally? Did you even stop to think, for one freakin’ second, about me?”

“I did this for you!” I insist.

“Really? What would have happened to us if I forgot about you? If you forgot about me? I wanted us to try. What if things changed? Time travel does that, Andre! It changes things in ways you can never understand, like my mom said. And if getting Dave back was something that I wanted, I could have asked her to do that a long time ago!”

“You know that wasn’t…”

“No, Andre! I don’t know. I don’t freaking know, because what I thought I did know was that I could trust you. And look where that got me!”

I narrow my eyes and ball my fists by my side to still my anger. Blake needs this. He needs to rant and feel…well, whatever he feels…about my failed attempt to change the past.