There she was.
Holy fuck, there she was.
Bruised, beaten, furious, still mine in the most terrifying way a person could become mine without ever asking permission. Not property. Not possession. Something worse. Something permanent. Something that had gotten under my ribs and rearranged me until the thought of losing her made the world turn sharp at the edges.
I lifted her hand and pressed my mouth carefully to her fingers. “I heard I got my own Never.”
The joke drained from her face so quickly I regretted saying it wrong.
Her lashes lowered, and for a second, she looked younger than twenty-one. Not fragile. Bliss Bennett could have been lying there in a full-body cast and still somehow managed to insult me and call it part of the benefits. But she looked exposed in a way I rarely saw from her. Serious Bliss. The version who stepped out from behind the sparkle and chaos and handed me pieces of herself with shaking hands.
“I bought it,” she said.
“I know.”
“No, I mean, I really bought it. I picked it out.” Her throat worked carefully around the words, and her fingers tightened around mine. “It was this ridiculous little marble, and it was perfect, and I had a whole plan, which is humiliating because I don’t plan romantic emotional ambushes. I’m more of a panic-and-insult girl.”
“You’re versatile.”
Her eyes flicked to mine, wet and wounded and trying so hard to smile. “I was coming to you.”
“I know, Pip.”
“I tried to keep it.” Her voice cracked there, and the crack went straight through me. “When he grabbed me, I had it in my hand, and I tried so hard not to let go, but everything hurt and I couldn’t breathe right, and I don’t know where it went.”
My jaw locked, but I made myself stay with her. Not with Luke. Not with the image of his hands. With her.
“We’ll find another one,” I said quietly. “You’re the queen of cool marbles. Marble hunting is basically your weird little superpower.”
A tear slipped down her temple into her hair. “It wasn’t about the marble.”
My chest tightened.
She looked at me then, really looked at me, and for once there was no joke between us. No dramatic insult. No emotionally confused escape route. Just Bliss, bruised and terrified and braver than anyone I’d ever known.
“It was me trying to tell you that you’re not just benefits to me.”
The words filled the room softly and moved through me with impact. I didn’t smile right away. I didn’t want her to think I was teasing the moment out of existence. I just heldher hand and let the truth of it settle between us, heavier than the machines humming around her bed, heavier than the rage waiting in my blood, heavier than every careful lie she had used to keep herself safe.
“I know,” I said.
Her eyes widened, and a little spark of offended Pip cut through the tears. “You know?”
“Yeah.”
“You just knew?”
“Yeah.”
“That is so invasive.”
I brushed my thumb over her knuckles again. “You bought me a Never.”
“You didn’t know that part.”
I played along. “I knew the rest.”
Her mouth opened, closed, then opened again. “I hate you.”
