Not literally. I remember the reasons I gave myself. The danger. The violence. The world he belongs to that nearly killed me once. The fact that loving someone like him means accepting blood on his hands and bodies in his wake.
I remember the reasons.
I just can't feel them anymore.
Dante shifts in his sleep. His hand reaches across the mattress, searching. When it finds empty sheets, his brow furrows.
"Marina." My name comes out slurred. Half-asleep.
"I'm here."
His eyes don't open, but his body relaxes. His hand stops searching.
I'm not just sleeping with Dante Castellani. I'm not just hiding with him while a cartel hunts us down. I'm not just passing time until this crisis ends and we go back to our separate lives.
I'mwithhim.
When did that happen?
I try to trace it back. Find the exact moment I stopped fighting and started falling. But there isn't one. It's been happening since the beginning.
I just didn't want to see it.
He's not okay.
I knew it the moment he came back from meeting Alejandro. Something shifted behind his eyes. A door closing. A wall going up.
I hate that I can't read him.
But I don't know him.
I'm learning. Piece by piece.
I hate that I can't help him.
My hand cramps. I look down and realize I've been clenching my fist without noticing. I flex my fingers slowly.
I need to find what the hell is going on.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Dante -A week later
Marina's voice drifts from the kitchen. She's humming something. Can't place the song. Doesn't matter. The sound of it settles somewhere in my chest.
Seven days of her asking questions I never expected to answer. What's your favourite colour? Do you dream? What did you want to be when you were little, before everything?
Black. Rarely. A firefighter.
She laughed at that last one. Said she couldn't picture me in the uniform. I told her the hat would mess up my hair. She threw a pillow at my head.
Seven days of cooking together in the kitchen. Marina burns everything she touches, but she refuses to let me take over. Stubborn. I stand behind her, guiding her hands on the knife, showing her how to dice onions without losing a finger. She leans back against my chest like it's natural. Like we've done this for years instead of days.
Seven days of her talking about memories. Her grandmother's garden in summer. The smell of tomatoesripening on the vine. Her first art show in college, when she sold a painting for forty dollars and felt like a millionaire. The time Sophia convinced her to sneak into a sold out concert and they got caught by security but talked their way out.
She lights up when she talks about the past. The good parts, anyway. Her eyes change. That guarded look disappears, and I see the woman she was before Daniil. Before me. Before any of this touched her.
I memorize every story. Every detail. The way her nose scrunches when she laughs. The way she tucks her hair behind her ear when she's thinking. The way her damaged hand relaxes when she forgets to hide it.
