• • •
I stand at the edge of the blanket and look at them for a second.
Just a second.
Then Cassian pulls me down next to him and we lie on our sides, facing each other, the garden all around us, the sky doing something extraordinary above it.
A new kind of stargazing.
“This is one of my favorite memories,” I say. “Whenever things got hard, I’d always come back to that first night. Us out here. Looking at the stars.”
He’s quiet for a moment.
“Oh—I always thought that was me and Abby.”
I punch him so hard I immediately apologize.
He’s laughing.
I’m rubbing his arm.
Both of us slightly ridiculous.
“Anyway,” he says, when the laughing settles.
Quieter now.
Looking at me in that way that means he’s decided something and is making peace with the decision.
“I don’t think I was ever confused. I think I always loved you.”
The words land slow and complete.
And then I wait.
Because his words are always doing something to me.
The weight of it.
The years tucked inside it.
And then I notice.
He hasn’t said it back.
Not directly.
I always loved you is not the same as I love you and my brain, unhelpfully, knows this distinction.
And then the thoughts start.
Quiet at first.
Then louder.
Maybe this was all in my head.
Maybe he’s only here because of my mom and he feels guilty about it.
