I stare at the untouched glass until my jaw stops grinding.I stand.The chair legs bark against the floor.On the way out, my phone lights again.
Lindy Girl:
Come home.I won’t say anything unless you ask.
I go to her.Not because I’ve forgiven her.Not because I believe her.I go because Uncle Leven is right.I’m not my father and keeping her alive until we know what’s what comes above everything else.
I unlock my own door.Logan fades to the stairs.She’s at the island in the blue sweater, hands around a mug.She starts to speak.I lift a hand.
“Three rules,” I say.“One: you don’t say her name.Not out loud, not in a whisper, not even in a dream.Two: if you want out, say it now and I’ll put you in a car and send you anywhere you want and we’re done.Three: until I say otherwise, everything from this point forward between us is provisional.No more talk of ghosts.”
She nods.“Okay.”
“Okay what.”
“Okay to all of it.”She steps closer.“And three back.One: you act normal.No punishing silence, no vanishing.If you need distance, say that.If you need me, come take me.Two: you don’t call me a liar unless you can prove it, and if you think you can, you say it to my face first, not to your family.Three: if you decide to end this, you tell me before you walk out the door.Look me in the eye.”
I hold her stare.“Fine.”
“Fine.Provisional, and normal,” she says, and doesn’t flinch.God, I missed her.Nothing about her is provisional for me, no matter what I just said.I don’t know where we go from here, so I take her rule and act normal.I’ll fucking force normal if I have to keep her close, to watch her, to train her, and to decide every other fucked up thing later.
I cross the room and take the cup from her hands, and set it aside.My mouth finds her like I’ve been starving for days, because I have.The first kiss is a hit; the second is slower, deeper, greedy.I lift her to the counter, drag her to the edge, slot my hips in and spread her knees with mine.One hand palms the back of her neck and holds; the other slides under her sweater, heat to heat, up her ribs until her breath breaks against my tongue.She fists my shirt and yanks me closer.I bite her lower lip, gentle, then not, and taste tea and the salt of blood.I kiss down the line of her neck, pause where her pulse trips, drag my mouth along her jaw, and come back for her mouth when she gives me that wrecked little sound.
“This isn’t me forgiving you,” I say into the seam of her lips.“This isn’t me believing you.”
“I know,” she whispers, tugging me back.
“Good.”I take her again, thumb stroking the soft under her jaw, palm anchoring her waist, her heel hooking my hip as our kiss drops the room away and all that’s left is the sound she makes each time I breathe her in.
I keep her home.
The days blur.We cook together.I run baths hot enough to make the mirrors cry.I make love to her at night and in early morning, and I fuck her on every surface of this house in the minutes in between.Every time she comes apart in my hands, a corner of the fear inside me goes quiet.
And still, I don’t start.
I check in with Adrian and Caleb.I try Atlas twice back-to-back, but there’s no answer.Thirty seconds later he texts:finding the kid.I’ll call when I can.He promised some woman he’d find her daughter.He won’t say her name, but I know he kept the girl from the hotel.Uncle Leven assures me that everything is under control and Sava is taking marks from Travis for us both.
And still, I don’t start.
Because I’ve never in my life wanted to be gentle more than I do with her.Breaking her, even a little, even to save her, will be the hardest thing I ever do.Harder than every throat I’ve opened.Harder than putting my own father in the ground.I’ve plucked men’s eyeballs out with ungloved fingers, and this will be worse.Because I’ve never loved anyone before.Besides my family, I’ve never had anything to lose, and there’s a twisted, fucked up part of my insides that knows I’d choose to lose any of them if I could keep her.But no matter how hard I love her, that won’t keep her breathing.
But, I keep hearing her say it.London.It curdles something that I thought was unbreakable inside me.I don’t know how to hold that without hating her.So I do the only thing I trust and put the anger in a box, lock it, and pretend that whole fucked conversation never happened.I can’t forgive her, not yet.But I can teach her how to survive the men who may come because I love her.Because I do love her, even though right now I hate her.
So this morning, I stop choosing easy.I stop choosingnormal.I need something I can measure.We’ll live there for a while.
She’s at the kitchen bar with coffee and a book when I find her.
“Get changed, Lindy girl,” I say, kissing her temple.“Meet me in the basement.”
“What are we doing?”
“Training.”
Downstairs smells like rubber and iron.The heavy bag thuds when I palm it.Mats.A rack of weights.A folded table with what looks like junk until you know what you’re seeing: zip ties, paracord, a roll of duct tape, a scarf, a belt, a collection of knives, a handful of bobby pins, two shoelaces, and a pistol.Things I can fix laid out in metal and cord.When my hands are busy, my head shuts up.At least, that’s the hope.
She comes down barefoot, leggings, a hoodie slipping off one shoulder, hair pulled back.Too soft for what I’m about to ask.A softness I will take from her in a way that she’ll never get it back.
“We start slow,” I tell her.“I need you to remember that panic is a liar.Breath lives under panic.Find it and you won't drown.”
