"Come with me."
I take his hand, trying to end the way I’m trembling. I keep telling myself that he’s my boyfriend, that he won’t hurt me, and that he misses me.
He leads me upstairs.
I know every step of this staircase. The third one that creaks is the landing where his father's young portrait hangs, the turn at the top that leads to his wing of the house. I have walked this route a hundred times. My hand in his, his thumb moving across my knuckles, the familiar geography of a house that used to feel like a second home.
His room is the same.
Dark walls, the desk in the corner, the bookshelf that is more trophy shelf than bookshelf, the window that looks out over the back garden. His bed is against the far wall.
He's set something up.
Laptop on the bed, propped against the pillows. A bowl of the popcorn I like — the white cheddar, the kind he used to pretend he didn't like, and then he’d eat half of it. The string lightshe bought for his dorm freshman year that somehow migrated here.
I look at all of it.
"You planned this," I say, looking around.
"Yeah."
"Dinner and a movie?"
"The dinner was because I missed you." He squeezes my hand. "The movie is because I'm not ready for you to leave."
I look at this boy who built a fire, set up string lights, bought the right popcorn, and kissed me in a way that noticed when I wasn't fully there and held on anyway. Who loves me in the only way he knows how.
"What are we watching?" I ask.
He smiles. “I’ll show you.”
We settle on the bed — me against the headboard, him beside me, the popcorn between us, the laptop open to something I barely register because I am too aware of every point of contact. His shoulder against mine. His hand finding mine in the popcorn bowl.
The string lights make the room amber and soft.
I watch the screen and feel his thumb move across my knuckles and breathe slowly and think about nothing I'm supposed to be thinking about.
"This is nice," he says quietly.
"Yeah," I say.
"We can do this all the time now. You don’t need to ask your parents’ permission to leave the house anymore. And I'm getting healthier every day." He looks at the screen. "Everything's going to be better now that you’re at UW."
I look at the amber light on the wall. I try to keep my voice even as I agree, “Yeah.” That’s what I wanted, right?
His hand tightens on mine.
The movie plays.
I stay.
Chapter 43: Cody
Shefitsagainstmethe same way she always has.
That's the thing about two years. The body remembers. Her weight against my chest, the specific way her shoulder tucks under my arm, the way she exhales when she settles — all of it exactly the same. Like, no time has passed.
The movie plays, but I'm not watching it. I'm watching her.
