Sometimes I think that’s all family is in the end. Not blood. Not names. Just the people and things that remain.
That may not be romantic enough for you.
But it’s true.
And if you want something that’s yours, then choose it. Don’t wait around for the world to hand it to you in a neat little box with a bow.
The world is lousy at gifts.
—Ash
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
REVA
I’m aboutto run away, which is ridiculous because I’m a grown ass woman and can walk out any door I want to.
Nash doesn’t take his hands off me. He can tell I’m about to bolt. Instead, his fingers dance along my skin like he’s memorizing the way I feel. Anchoring me against his bed so that he can keep me from leaving.
Like he already knows I’m about to do something he won’t like. I don’t move. Don’t push him away. Don’t pull him closer.
I just sit there, his shirt hanging off me, his hands still on my body, my mind racing in ten different directions at once.
“You’re thinking too loud,” he says quietly.
I let out a humorless breath. “You gave me a lot to think about.”
“I gave you answers.”
“You gave me pieces.”
“That’s all there is right now.”
I shake my head, looking away from him, from the bed, from everything that suddenly feels too small to contain what’s happening inside my chest.
“That’s not enough,” I say, softer now. “It’s never enough.”
It wasn’t enough that my family, the first people to love me, were gone. It wasn’t enough that I survived. It won’t be enough until he’s dead and I know I’m safe.
Silence stretches between us, full and heavy. Then Nash moves.
Just enough that his hands slide from my waist to my hips, then up—slow, deliberate—until they settle at my ribs, thumbs brushing lightly beneath the edge of his shirt.
“You don’t know what enough looks like yet,” he says.
“I know what I lost.”
His grip tightens. “I’m not talking about the past.”
“I am. That’s all I have left.”
The words come out sharper than I intend, but I don’t take them back. I can’t.
Because that’s the problem.
Everything in me is still there. Still standing in that house. Still hearing?—
I swallow hard, cutting the thought off before it can take shape. Don’t go there.
