“I said pick my girlfriend’s notebook up,” Thallor growled.Girlfriend…I know it’s not real, but I could get used to that, I think.
“She’syour girlfriend?” Cannibal mermaid scoffed incredulously. Thallor took one step forward, letting them feel his imposing presence.
“She’s myeverything.”
Harley Quinn rolled her eyes but acquiesced and picked up the notebook a moment later, before storming off,Arielhot on her heels. Thallor didn’t just dismiss them with his words or his presence; he did it withme. I could almost feel their jealousy. But I didn’t care, not when Thallor looped one arm of my bag around his shoulder and kissed my cheek.It’s not real. It’s not real. It’s not real.
I tried to still the thrumming in my heart as we walked out of the library, my hand held safely in Thallor’s. He gripped it like it belonged to him. LikeIbelonged to him.
By the time we rounded the corner and stepped into the colder shadow of the stairwell, he was still clutching my hand like it was the only solid thing left in the world. My heartbeat felt like it was trying to hammer its way out of my chest. My entirebody was flooded with a rush of something hot and reckless—something that I had been desperately trying to ignore.
“You okay?” Thallor asked as we walked toward the exit, his thumb gently brushing against mine like he didn’t even realise he was doing it.
I nodded. Probably too quickly. In fact, definitely too quickly with the way he eyed me and huffed out a laugh. “I’m fine!” The sound of my voice came out high-pitched because that was totally normal.
“Well, I’m glad you’re finenow.I hope that was okay? You looked like you needed a little saving.”
“Is that what you call it?” I said before I could stop myself, letting out a shaky laugh when I caught the blush creeping up Thallor’s cheeks. “I seem to have the innate ability to attract assholes wherever I go. But thank you…you didn’t have to do that. But I appreciate it…the chin and the kiss and thebaby…”
“Sterling, I’ve wanted to do that for longer than you know. It was nice to have an excuse to do it,” he said, smiling down at me.
“You don’t need an excuse…” I replied before I realised what I was saying.
His lips twitched, but he didn’t say anything as he continued to lead us down the stairs, hands still firmly wrapped around mine. I should have let go. Made a joke and played it off. But I didn’t. Because even though Thallor was playing into some fake boyfriend role, it didn’t feel like acting. It never had.
When we hit the ground floor, he pushed open the side door and stepped out into the sharp afternoon air. There was little going on besides the hum of traffic and a few groups of people lingering on the steps. Thallor turned to me, finally letting my hand drop, a concerned look etched across his face. I fixed my face in a tight smile to avoid the momentary sadness I felt as the cool air whipped at my skin.
“I know you said you needed time, so I’m sorry. I know you can handle yourself, and I didn’t mean to overstep and probably could have handled it differently. I just saw them going after you, and I just needed to stop myself getting angry, and you are the only thing that makes me feel controlled…in this weird, uncontrollable sort of way. I…I am sorry, though…”
And then slowly, tentatively, I laced my fingers with his. I watched as he looked down at our intertwined hands, brows furrowed in a deep line, and breath caught in his throat. My mind was a barrage of emotions I wasn’t sure how to deal with. But the heat of his hand in mine felt like home. It’s exactly as they say, unforgettable the first time it happens. The love had seeped in slowly, but I could feel it in the cracks of my heart.
Maybe I wasn’t a cynic, after all. Maybe I’d just never considered myself capable of being loved until I was. A part of me was still hesitant to let the walls I’d built fall. But I wanted to trust that this was real. That whatever this was could work. For a moment, I imagined him. I imagined him thinking the exact same things that replay in my mind over and over and?—
My phone buzzed in my pocket as a bombardment of missed calls and texts finally came through now that I had signal.
Gramps: Quincey, I’ve tried calling.
Gramps: I’m taking Maura to Chesterwood Memorial Hospital.
Gramps: Please come if you can. This is probably it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
There's no way to fully prepare for the feeling of having the floor ripped out from under you. I felt as though I was free-falling, plummeting to earth at breakneck speed, with a pain like I'd never felt before, raring up to greet me. My heart simultaneously lodged in my throat and thrashed against the cage of my chest, threatening to spew out of me in a torrent of lukewarm coffee and undigested lunch.
My eyes watered as I stared at the blurring road ahead of me, one that never came into focus as we drove to the hospital. I was sitting in the passenger seat, quietly thanking whatever mystical power had allowed Thallor the knowledge of modern-day vehicles as we hurtled down the interstate that carried us to Chesterwood Memorial Hospital.
I stoked down my feelings as the word memorial lingered in the back of my mind. It was a word that held meaning, bestowing a level of respect on the medical community for their contributions to bettering the lives of others. Full but in the surging waves of grief, in the flood of my own thoughts, theword felt morbid. Final. Like the world had already decided that Maura was a distant memory–already gone–before I'd even gotten to say goodbye.
The closer we got, the worse I began to feel. Road signs, shop windows, and pedestrians all blurred into a never-ending blistering jealousy that gnawed at my skin. I felt angry, angry that the people around me got to go about their days none the wiser to what I was going through. They got to continue on with their days, theirlives,without that upending feeling of sorrow that seemed to grip at my very being. I stared straight ahead, eyes glued to the road, held by some terrifying fear that if I averted them for even one moment, for even onesecond,then we wouldn't make it in time.
You should have made the wish when you had the chance.
You should have made the wish.
You should have?—
Done something.
