But tomorrow feels very far away, and right now, Bastian feels very, very close. So for tonight—and tonight alone—I’m going to let myself feel safe in his arms.
Just for tonight.
31
ELIANA
hard crack /härd krak/: noun
1: sugar stage (300°F) just before burning; brittle when cooled.
2: when everything that melted at night goes rigid again by morning.
He’s still there in the morning.
The hot-as-hell furnace of his chest against my back. Hands and legs interwoven. It’s bad how good it feels, because last night was supposed to be a one-time thing. A happy littleoopsie-daisythat ended as soon as it began. But we lingered in it too long, so now, I’m going to have to untangle myself. Literallyandemotionally.
I get out and try not to pay attention to see if Bastian’s breathing changes or if he wakes up. I just run to the bathroom.
I take my time in there, splashing cold water on my face again and again. I procrastinate my return by brushing my teeth twice and flossing for the first time in way too long. When I do finally emerge, Bastian is awake and moving around in the kitchen.The smell of ginger tea hits me before I’ve even crossed the threshold.
“Good morning,” he says.
I incline my head. “Morning.”
That’s about the full extent of our conversation. I take my mug with a mumbled thanks and go sit at the dining room table with my back to the kitchen. But part of me remains keenly tuned in to every single breath Bastian takes in there.
Yasmin emerges from her bedroom a few minutes later. “G’morning, my lovely—Oh.” I can hear the grin that spreads across her face as she clocks the tension in the room immediately. She drops her voice to a babied sing-song and starts to ask, “Did some-bunnies have a widdle sleepov?—?”
“Yas,” I bark.
She closes her mouth. Thank God for best friends who know when to shut it.
Zeke bounds out behind her, as incapable as ever of reading a room. Sage is wheeling behind him as Zeke jabbers endlessly about something he saw on TikTok last night. I silently offer up a prayer for whoever showed him how to use TikTok to stub their toe really hard this morning.
“—and then the guy justyeetedthe entire thing into the pool, bro; it was insane?—”
“Dude,” Sage interrupts, “nobody over the age of twenty-five should use the word ‘yeet’ unironically.”
“I’m reclaiming it,” Zeke insists. “It’s retro now.”
“It’s not retro. It’s cringe.”
“Cringe is also retro. So is irony. Everything the light touches is mine.”
I laugh, shake my head, wrap my hands around my mug and let the warmth seep into my palms.
The morning stretches on in this strange new rhythm we’ve all fallen into. Sage and Zeke bicker about video games while Yasmin scrolls through her phone, occasionally reading out headlines. Bastian moves through the kitchen like a ghost, cleaning dishes that are already clean, reorganizing cabinets that don’t need reorganizing.
I just drink my tea.
“So,” Yasmin finally says, “what’s the plan for today? If I have to spend another afternoon watching Zeke lose over and over again at Mario Kart, I might actually lose my mind.”
“Hey!” Zeke protests. “I wontwiceyesterday.”
“And how many races did you two do, Sage?” Yasmin asks pointedly.
Sage chuckles. “Forty-seven.”
