I needed to learn how to be just me; otherwise, I’m a burden, nothing but a worry for the people I love.
I’m not there yet. I’m not sure I ever will be. People need other people, and I need them more than most. But I’ve spent months more alone than I’ve ever been before. Months of learning to sit with myself, with my thoughts, good and bad. Distracting myself from the worst of them without flinging myself at the people around me. And reveling in the good ones, shared only with a golden-eyed cat.
Swallowing back the panic in my chest, I climb into the arch of the window, needing to know I can do this.
I can live. I will. And if the worst should happen and our plans fail, I’m not giving up.
Not on getting Clara and Trips back. And not on myself.
Leaning out over the edge, the way Walker said he found me, I stay bowed over nothing until my heart finally returns to its regular pace, the icy breeze skating under my coat and licking my stomach, my fingers and toes growing stiff with cold.
Because I’m strong enough to keep fighting. And if I’m not, well, that’s what being part of a family means.
If I’m not strong enough alone, together, we will be.
A huff of breath turns into a cloud, obscuring the lights of the city, and I hop off the ledge, leaving the tower behind.
I’m strong enough to fight.
When I get home, I crawl into my bed on the floor, petting Fluffington as he claims most of my pillow for himself. I drift off to the heavy scent of a citrus bloom; the lime tree has its first blossom.
A beginning.
I’d been looking for one of those.
And now I’ve got one.
Chapter 50
Clara
Christmas passes in a pageant of political connections and false cheer. As the wedding draws nearer, the silence from the guys terrifies me. Having my phone taken away, even if I was barely using it, feels even more precarious now that we’re no longer going to campus. But I have to trust. There’s no other option.
I overheard Mattie telling a friend that her boyfriend is going to be at the wedding, and I wanted to ask how that was going, how he got an invitation, but she’s still avoiding me. Trips’ nostrils flare every time she spins and goes in the opposite direction instead of talking to him, and all I can do is grip his hand, trying to convey without words that I’m here for him.
But at night, we hold each other, whispering our hopes for the future, talking about the things we wish for more than anything.
Of all of us together. Of the gigs we’d take, the legitimate businesses that would serve as our cover, how Trips might fit into the relationships I’ve already built.
We dream of stupid things, like going out for coffee, and foolish things, like destroying everyone who threatens our future.
He tells me about how badly he wants to feel my mouth around him when I’m not a bloody mess, and I whisper how badly I want him to chase me and take me again.
Impossible things.
Wishes and dreams.
Until it’s time.
Either it all succeeds, or it all fails.
The day after tomorrow.
The night before my wedding, I attend a groom’s dinner where none of my guests are invited. Trips’ arm bands my waist, a knee-length, long-sleeved, cream, lace-covered dress scratchy against my skin, while a similarly scratchy cream sweater stretches across his shoulders. I lean against him, my body exhausted from my continued nightmares, ones I’d figured I’d banished half a year ago.
Long-term stress has always been my downfall. Short bursts give me intention and focus, but months? It’s too much.
Half my dreams are of me weeping over the bloody body of a little girl with my dark hair and Trips’ blue eyes staringblankly over my shoulder. I know she’s mine, and that she’s dead simply for daring to be born female. The other half of my dreams have blood pouring from my fingernails, never stopping, never wiping clean, leaving a trail behind me as I stumble through endless halls of this mansion, the shouts of my guys never growing closer no matter how fast I run.
