I press my thumb to the cover until it hurts.“I’ll read it.”
I’ll read every page like penance.Not to pull pity from my death, but to stop acting like the worst thing I did was survive.
“There are parts you shouldn’t read.”She places her hand over mine on the book.“The messy, sexually graphic parts.”
“No shit?”I slide the book out of her reach because now, of course, I have to read it.
“I’m serious.”She tries to grab it back.“I describe your brothers’ anatomy in shameless, vivid detail.”
“Did you exaggerate size and stamina?Or did you keep it realistic?”
She groans.“Please, don’t read those parts.”
“Do you even know me?”
“Why did I say anything?”She drops her face in her hands.
“Hey.”I duck my head, trying to meet her eyes.“What’s a little brotherly porn shared between friends?”
Her face is still in her palms, but when I pry her chin up and angle it toward me, we’re locked, her eyes on mine, mine on hers.
We try.Frozen bones and fuckberries, we try to remain serious for the sake of this conversation.Her mouth tightens.My molars clamp together, but the longer we stare, the faster we crumble.
Her expression cracks first.A flutter at the corner of her lips.That’s all it takes to wrest a grin out of me.It splits across my face, lopsided and unguarded.Then we’re both grinning like assholes, shaking our heads, laughing without sound, and just being… Us.
“Wolf.”She says my name like a thought she’s been holding in her mouth to keep it warm.
“Hm?”
“I’m giving you my story because maybe it will help you tell yours.”She grabs the second book and stacks it on her journal.“This one is yours.”
I thumb it open and flip through the pages.They’re blank.Every damn one.
“Write your story.”
I bark a laugh and hate how it sounds.“I did, remember?It’s a dark comedy titledAlready Dead.”
“And I said to rewrite it.Change the narrative.Remember?”
Yeah.That night, I told her I would live, that I would survive for her.I said it, knowing it was a lie.I’d already planned my dramatic exit.
But fate had other plans, and here we are.
I stare at her, processing her advice with better clarity than I had that night.Maybe I’ve matured, learned a thing or two since that jump off the cliff.
She wants me to write my story, put the past on paper.Words on a page won’t stare back at me with judgment.I can shape them, scrub them, cut the parts that don’t fit.Easier than saying it out loud and watching Dove’s face rearrange into pity or disgust in real time.
“Let’s say I follow your advice and let Dove read it.Then what?”
“Then you write the next chapter.In your head.Or on the page.Write the best damn story you can imagine for yourself.Then go out and live it.”
“What if my brain is an unreliable narrator?What if it edits out the parts where I deserve good things?”
“Then you remind it.Every day.With little stuff.Food.Warm showers.Letting people hug you.Reading a page.Writing a sentence.Making love to a pretty mechanic.Remind it that you aren’t where you were anymore.”
My mouth tastes like pepper and coffee and something like grief.I look down at the book, the cover darkening where my fingers sit, sweat seeping into the fabric.
The robe’s cuff brushes the edge of the cover, and for a second, I see my mother’s hand where mine is, the way she used to press herbs with her palm and tuck them into a tin.
