“I know.” My voice cracked, but underneath it, something steadier held. “That’s the thing. I actually know now.”
For a second, neither of them said anything. They just sat there with me in the pink glow of our ridiculous apartment while Cade’s hoodie sat warm against my skin and Luke’s bruise darkened beneath my fingers.
Then Charm wiped under her eyes and lifted her chin like she had decided the entire universe was personally on notice.
“Okay,” she said. “Then we are adding good back into your life immediately.”
I blinked. “What?”
Aura looked from Charm to me, understanding landing in her face before I got there.
Charm pointed at the hoodie. “Cade is a good Never.”
My breath caught.
“No.”
“Yes,” Aura said quietly. “He is.”
Charm’s voice softened. “Luke doesn’t get to be the only reason you add marbles, baby. Those started because you loved your mom and wanted to honor all the things you couldn’t share with her. The good things count too. Cade counts.”
I stared at them, tears still wet on my face, the bruise still exposed, Cade’s hoodie still around me like a confession I hadn’t said out loud yet.
And for the first time in a long time, the thought of adding a marble didn’t feel like grief.
It felt like taking something back.
Aura rested her hands over mine. “Cade is not a safe choice because he can’t hurt you. Love is never safe like that. He’s safe because he doesn’t want to own you. He wants to be yours, and that is a significant difference.”
Her words hit me deep, so deep I had to close my eyes.
Charm was quiet for a moment before she asked, “If your mom was here, would you call her about him?”
My eyes opened and the apartment blurred as Aura’s hands tightened around mine.
Charm watched me carefully, like she knew she had just touched the nerve beneath every single joke I had made all day.
“If Cindy Bennett was sitting in this room right now,” Charm said softly, “would you be scared of Cade? Or would you be pacing around the kitchen telling her every weird, gorgeous, impossible thing about him while pretending you weren’t falling for him?”
A tear slipped down my cheek before I could stop it. I tried to answer, but nothing came out.
Because I could see it.
I could see my mom at the kitchen table in our house, one hand wrapped around coffee, hair piled messy on her head, smiling that smile she got when she was trying not to laugh too early and ruin my dramatic delivery. I could hear myself telling her Cade was bossy and impossible and looked at me like he had already decided I was a problem worth solving. I could imagine her asking if he made me laugh. If he made me feel safe. If he looked at me when I was talking or only when I was pretty. If I trusted him with the parts of me I tried to hide.
“I wouldn’t be scared of him,” I whispered.
Charm’s face softened.
“I’d be scared of me,” I said, wiping at my cheek with the heel of my hand. “Of how much I want him. Of how fast it feels. Of the fact that he walked into my life like some emotionally repressed hockey vampire and started rearranging my organs. But I wouldn’t be scared of him.”
Aura’s eyes shone.
“I’d call her,” I whispered. “I would call her and tell her about him. I’d tell her he’s great, and infuriating, and too hot for society’s safety, and that he sees me in a way that makes me wantto run and stay at the same time.” My voice trembled. “I’d tell her he’s important to me. That I think I’m falling for him.”
Charm made a tiny broken sound and pulled me into her arms so fast coffee almost went everywhere.
“Oh, baby,” she whispered into my hair.
