I looked up.
“That night,” he said quietly. “At the grave. The way the moon caught your face. The way your eyes looked when you were crying but still standing there like nothing in the world had the right to knock you down.”
My lips parted.
“I don’t know,” he muttered. “It’s stupid.”
“No.”
He looked at me.
“No,” I said again, stronger. “It’s beautiful.”
His shoulders eased by the smallest amount.
“It’s perfect,” I whispered.
I lifted it from the box, but my hands shook a little. Dylan noticed. He always noticed.
“May I?”
I nodded.
He took the cuff and slid it onto my wrist.
His fingers brushed my skin.
The touch was careful.
Reverent.
My diamond earrings glinted in the corner of my vision when I looked down at the bracelet. Mother-of-pearl on my wrist. Diamonds in my ears. Salt on my skin. Moonlight everywhere.
For one wild second, I felt made of gifts and ghosts.
Dylan’s thumb rested near the inside of my wrist, right over my pulse.
“I kept thinking,” he said, voice low, “what do you give the girl who has everything?”
A sad little laugh slipped out of me.
“I hardly have everything.”
His eyes came back to mine.
“In fact, you know better than anyone,” I whispered. “I just trashed my whole life.”
“No.”
“Dylan.”
“No,” he said again, firmer. “You lost a life that was already hurting you. That doesn’t mean you trashed the whole thing.”
My throat tightened.
“You’ve got a fresh one ahead,” he said. “Blank pages. Ocean. School. People who won’t know the worst thing that ever happened to you before they know your coffee order.”
I stared at him.
