My chest pulls tight around the words she doesn’t say. I let them settle a while, the truth of it as heavy as a brick in the bottom of a backpack. I remember every holiday, every spring break she spent dancing on a different continent, performing for a thousand strangers, coming home only to vanish again. I remember the years I kept count, then the ones I didn’t, because it hurt less to act like I wasn’t waiting. I think about how I measured my life in her homecomings, and how every one of them ended with her leaving again.
Emma sinks lower, until her chin is barely above the surface. Her eyes are bright, red-rimmed, but she’s not crying anymore. “Maybe we’d already have a house by now, or a dog, or—God, I don’t know, a mortgage and a bunch of kids.” She huffs out a breath, splashes absently. “I got to do everything I ever wanted, and now all I can think about is all the years I wasted not letting myself want you.”
The ache in my chest spikes, sharp and hot and helpless. I want to tell her it didn’t matter, that none of it was wasted time, but I know she’d just argue and say I was wrong. So I try a different way.
“You ever think about what would’ve happened if you’d stayed?” I ask. “Like,reallythink about it?”
“Sometimes.” She’s quiet a moment. “I used to try and imagine myself as one of the club’s old ladies. Property of Bones written on my back.”
I let myself smile over the image as I sit forward. “Not gonna lie, swan. That’s always been my end goal—you wearing my patch.But never until you were ready. Not until you went out into the world and did everything you needed to do.”
“I needed you,” she cries, and my heart almost gets caught in my throat.
“You always had me.” I shift so I’m crouching beside the tub. “But, swan. If you’d stayed, it would have killed you. You’d have gotten stuck, and you’d have resented all of us, especially me.”
Her eyes fly to mine, dark and direct. “You don’t know that.”
“I do.” I lean closer, forearms on the ceramic edge. “If you’d given up ballet, given up New York, given up everything you worked for just to stay here—and to be with me—you would’ve made yourself miserable. And I would have hated myself every day for letting you do it.”
She scoffs, but there’s a ragged edge, like she wants to argue but can’t. “So you’re saying it never would have worked. Thatwenever would have worked.”
“No.” I shake my head. “We absolutely would have worked. We would have been a disaster. But it would have been our disaster. Don’t ever think for a second that I would have preferred you chained to this town instead of out there, being a star. Never.” The truth runs hot under my skin. “I am so goddamned proud of everything you did. I watched you chase that dream until you broke the sound barrier, and I was happy to wait. I was happy to love you from here, for as long as it took.”
Emma half-laughs, half-sniffs, rubs her face hard with her hands, and sits up so fast water sloshes onto the floor. “Why are you always so fucking noble? Can’t you just be a selfish asshole for once, Bones? Just tell me you wished I’d stayed. Tell me youwanted me here and you resented every second I was gone. For once in your goddamn life, tell me you’re mad at me.”
I stare at her, this mess of salt and anger and beauty, and I want to reach through all the years of missed chances and pull her back to me. “Of course I wanted you here,” I say, low and rough. “But I wanted you to want it, too. If you’d come home for me, you’d have fit yourself into a box just to make me happy, and that would kill me. So yeah, I missed you. I hated not having you here. But I wanted you whole, even if I couldn’t have you at all.”
Her face crumples and she covers it with her wet hands, shoulders shaking. I reach in and pull her up, water and all, wrapping my arms around her as she sobs into my shirt.
“I’m sorry,” she gasps. “I’m sorry I left. I’m sorry I wasted all that time?—”
“Stop.” I hold her tighter. “You didn’t waste anything. You lived your life. You became exactly who you were supposed to become. And now you’re here because you’re ready to be here, not because someone forced you.”
“But what if I’d never come back? What if I’d just?—”
“You were always going to come back, swan.” I shift so I can look at her. “You said it yourself earlier. You’re the girl who comes home. It’s in your marrow, remember? In your blood. You’re the club princess. You were always going to come back, Emma.” I press a kiss to her forehead. “And now you’re here. And I’m not letting you go.”
She wraps her arms around my neck, not caring that she’s getting me soaked. “Promise?”
“Promise.”
We stay like that for a minute, then there’s a soft knock on the door.
“Everyone decent?” Maggie’s voice.
“Depends on your definition,” I call back.
The door cracks open and Maggie peers in, taking in the scene—Emma half in the tub, me soaked and kneeling on the floor. “Well, this is a picture. Come on, let’s get her out before she turns into a prune.”
Between the two of us, we get Emma out of the tub and wrapped in a towel. Maggie ushers me out while she helps Emma dry off and get into the clean clothes she brought—a Stoneheart MC t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants.
I wait in the bedroom, changing out of my wet shirt into a dry one from the stash in the dresser. When they emerge, Emma looks cleaner but exhausted, leaning heavily on Maggie.
“Into bed with you,” Maggie says, guiding her over.
I help Emma lie down and we prop pillows under her leg, elevating the ankle. Maggie examines it carefully, re-wrapping the compression bandage with expert efficiency.
“Swelling’s not as bad as I feared,” she says. “But you need to stay off it. Ice and elevation for the next few days at minimum.”
