“April,” Daphne said softly.
April wasn’t sure what to say. Her instinct was to pull away, to run, to sayokay,never mind,that’s fine.
I’m fine.
But she wasn’t.
And she had nowhere else to go.
Chapter
Twenty-Nine
“April,” Daphne saidagain, holding April’s hands tight to her chest.
So tight.
Because she had to make April understand. The expression on her face was breaking Daphne’s heart.
But Daphne knew this was right.
She’d spent the last day and a half thinking about this, ever since she’d slipped that beautiful ring off her finger and handed it back to Elena. She’d said no then too, a word that somehow made her come alive, sparked a forever-dormant flame to life in her chest.
“When Elena asked me to marry her,” she said to April now, “I almost said yes.”
April’s brows flickered a little in response, her eyes wide and dark and fathomless.
“I almost saidyes,” Daphne went on, “to a woman who threw me out of her apartment with next to nothing. Who’d spent three years breaking me down to a version of myself she preferred. Who went to bed with me in the first place when she was promised to someone else.”
April’s jaw tightened, her fingers twitching, but Daphne had to keep going.
“I almost saidyes, because I have no idea who I am, April,” she said, her words coming faster now. “I’ve wanted a family my entire life. Even before I left home. My parents spent my first eighteen years trying to break me into a version of myselftheypreferred. I spent three years in college breaking myself into a version other people preferred—the queer community, the art community, whoever. It didn’t matter. If they showed me some attention, some love, I bent and twisted into something they liked.”
April’s lower lip shook, a tear spilling down her smooth cheek.
“And then Elena came along, and I thought I’d found it,” Daphne said. “But I’d only found another way to change myself for someone else, and I wanted her love—anyone’s love—so badly, I didn’t see it. I never saw it. Not until I met you.”
“Daphne,” April said softly. A whisper.
“No, no, let me get this out,” Daphne said. Her fingers were numb on April’s, but she couldn’t let go. Not yet. “I met you and I met Sasha, and for the first time in my life, I felt like me. Butmewas a stranger. Slowly, I started getting to know her.”
“And?” April asked.
“I liked her,” Daphne said, her smile small but sure. “I like her a lot. I think I fell in love with her.”
April smiled back. “Good.”
“It is,” Daphne said, then took a deep breath. “But I fell in love with someone else too.”
April tilted her head. “Sasha?”
Daphne laughed, and April laughed too, and that April could make a silly joke in this moment just made Daphne love her all the more.
She untangled their hands and held April’s face close to her own. “You, you idiot.”
April laughed, her fingers soft on Daphne’s wrist. “Oh, good, because I think I fell in love with you too.”
“Really?”
