“Do not sound too proud of yourself.”
“Impossible. I am insufferable when proven right.”
“I noticed.”
Her smile widens by one dangerous degree.
God, I want her.
Not softly. Not in some future-tense version where my mother is fully recovered and the series is over and there are clean sheets, a locked door, and no one down the hall asking whether Jell-O counts as food.
I want her now, in a hospital corridor, with my mother recovering twenty yards away and my phone full of headlines.
I want her because she got me here.
Because she stayed.
Because she keeps looking at the worst parts of me and not mistaking them for the whole thing.
The force of it makes the world narrow.
She sees it.
Of course she sees it.
Peyton’s expression changes, the tiredness dropping away for one unguarded second, and there it is between us again. The thing we keep trying to make wait its turn.
Her gaze drops to my mouth.
Mine drops to hers.
For one stupid, impossible second, the air forgets where we are.
Then Lily shouts from the vending machine, “Peyton, Emma says peanut M&M’s are healthier because peanuts are protein.”
Peyton closes her eyes. “I am needed elsewhere.”
“For nutrition law.”
“A sacred field.”
She starts to pass me.
I catch her hand.
Just her fingers. Quick. Hidden by the angle of my body.
Her breath catches.
The sound is small.
It goes through me anyway.
“Thank you,” I say.
“Stop thanking me.”
“No.”
