CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Vesper
Bellamy had been asleep since they boarded the trolley. Vesper knew she’d need it, especially given how she’d been fighting to stay awake the whole walk to the station. Sleep would be good for her. It was completely normal.
It had been hours though. The sun was going down, but this trolley had a light. Vesper switched it on. She’d been trying to read, to sit and unwind. But instead, she’d ended up pacing, checking Bellamy’s pulse, anxiously fiddling with her Embunuh-issued message bracelet—could they track her with that? She should’ve tossed it at the station.
No new messages, though. Bel’s pulse was fine. So far, it looked like they were in the clear.
The longest she’d sat down was to eat the shitty sandwich she’d bought at the trolley station. Then, she was right back up.
It didn’t make any sense. They were fine. So, why was Vesper’s heart pounding? Why were her lungs constricting every time she tried to sit down?
Her hands shook as she splashed water on her face. It was even more stifling in the trolley bathroom. Laughably small. Vesper kept the curtain open, her ears primed for any noise from Bellamy.She was probably just crashing from the day's events. Adrenaline and all that.
But it had been hours. And she’d never crashed like this before. Vesper’s heart beat too quickly. She tried to drink water, then drink more water. She’d already taken a shower—freezing to shock her system. Didn’t work. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about what could happen to Bel while she was in the shower.
Her brain wouldn’t shut the fuck up. Her neatly compiled list of what needed to be done when they got home was scattered with random worries about Bellamy.Fucking Bellamy. She was going to have a lot of explaining to do when she woke up. If she woke up.
Vesper punched the wall. Not enough to break anything—the shock of it radiated up to her elbow—just enough to force her brain to focus on literally anything but that possibility. Bel would be fine. Not that she was worried. Vesper stalked back into the bathroom to wash the fresh drops of blood off her knuckles.
“Ves?” Bel’s voice filtered through the little curtain separating them. Everything inside Vesper slowed. Her eyes burned and she swallowed, clearing her throat.
“Yeah, out in a sec.” Vesper’s hands were still shaking as she patted them dry, careful over the split knuckles.
She couldn’t rationalize the relief that flooded through her at the sight of Bellamy sitting up in bed. Her body was slouched, and there were bags under her eyes—she was clearly exhausted. But she was alive. Bellamy gave her a tentative smile as Vesper approached.
“Hungry?” Vesper grabbed the protein smoothie she’d bought for Bel at the station and held it out to her. Bellamy nodded and took it like she’d been famished for hours—which, she probably was since she’d slept through two meal times.
“Healed up?” Vesper asked when she finished.
“Yeah,” Bellamy tugged her shirt up.Only a thin scar remained. Vesper knelt, running her thumb over the line. Barely any evidence, might even be gone by morning.
“Ves?” Bellamy whispered. Vesper froze, one hand on firmly held Bellamy’s waist while the other hovered just above the scar.
She knew what Bellamy wanted, but she didn’t know if she could give it to her. She forced herself to answer, a brief “Hm?”
“Why’d you do it?” Bellamy delicately cupped Vesper’s chin and tilted her head up so she could look into Vesper’s eyes.
Vesper sighed. Bel wasn’t going to drop it again. Besides, it wasn’t like Vesper hadn’t spent the entire afternoon thinking about the answer to that. Still, she wasn’t ready. She hesitated. There was just so much shit between them.
There were so many years of hatred—that didn’t just go away. So much fighting. It didn’t feel right to claim that hadn’t been true, to throw it all away just because Vesper was fucking weak and Bellamy had almost died for her. They weren’t good. They wouldn’t be for a long time. But whatever Vesper said next would dictate how their healing would start.
And that was a lot of fucking pressure.
Vesper swallowed. She was taking too long, and she knew it. Tears started to well in Bellamy’s eyes, and she dropped Vesper’s chin, breaking their eye contact to look at the floor.
Fuck.She was ruining it already.
“I hated you, Bel. For so fucking long,” Vesper whispered. Bellamy’s eyes snapped back to hers, an angry glare in them. “You ruined everything for us.” Vesper reached up to wipe a tear away. The gesture seemed to sooth some of Bel’s fire.
“Every chance you got to mend things, you just fucked it all up again. Bellamy, you are the only person who can make me this fucking crazy. The only person that I can’t bring myself to just fucking let go, even after everything.
“I tried, Bel. I tried so hard. Told myself you were lost to me, you’d end up ruining us more. But there is no me without you. There’s no world in which I would survive without you. And I fucking hated you for that. It’s always been you, Bel, it always willbe. I couldn’t leave you—Ican’tleave you. I’d let you ruin me a thousand times over if it meant you stayed in my life.”
Vesper didn’t wait for Bellamy to respond. She couldn’t look at her after getting that all off her chest. Bellamy opened her mouth to say something, but Vesper didn’t give her the chance. Couldn’t let Bellamy brush this off and ruin it again, not when they had made it to this point.
Bellamy was not going to fucking ruin this moment.
