I want to be the reason she laughs.
Not just Lily. Me.
"What happened?" I ask, though I already know.
"I got pregnant." Her voice doesn't waver, but I feel her body tense. "I was twenty-one. Jack and I had been together for three years. He seemed... safe. Stable. My mom loved him." A bitter edge creeps into her tone. "Everyone loved him."
Everyone except me, I think. I'd like to kill him slowly.
"When I told him about Lily, he proposed the same day. I thought—" She stops. Swallows. "I thought I was lucky. Stupid, right? I actually believed I was one of the lucky ones."
"You're not stupid."
"I was blind." She says it like a confession. "He changed after we got married. Or maybe he was always that way and I just didn't see it. The comments about my weight. My clothes. My friends. How I laughed too loud or talked too much or wasn't grateful enough for everything he provided."
My jaw clenches. I force myself to stay still, to keep my breathing even. If I move right now, I'll put my fist through something.
"Then Lily got sick." Her voice cracks. Just slightly. "And nothing else mattered anymore. Not Jack's cruelty, not my dreams, not anything. Just keeping her alive."
She falls silent. I don't push.
After a moment, she looks up at me with those grey-blue eyes that see too much. "Your turn."
"My turn for what?"
"Tell me something real. Something that isn't in a file somewhere."
I should deflect. Change the subject. Keep my walls intact like I've done for thirty years.
Instead, I hear myself say: "I've never done this before."
"Done what?"
"This." I gesture vaguely at the space between us. "Wanting someone to stay."
Her breath catches.
"Everyone leaves eventually," I continue, the words coming from somewhere I didn't know existed. "Or they should. This life... it destroys soft things. I learned that young."
"I'm not soft."
"No." I trace my thumb across her cheekbone. "You're the strongest person I've ever met. And that terrifies me."
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Kristen
Sleep won't come.
I lie in Nico's bed, staring at the ceiling while his arm rests heavy across my stomach. His breathing has slowed, deep and steady, but my body hums like a live wire. Every nerve ending still tingles from what we did. From what he did to me.
More.
The word pulses through me like a heartbeat. I want more.
This is new. This hungry, restless ache that won't quiet down.
I don't know what to do with it.
