“You mean there’s good ones?” I ask, stepping inside while she moves aside.
Maeve’s room is smaller than mine, no couches or kitchenette. But I’m still grateful for Lucian pulling some strings so she can have a single room.
I head to her bed, pulling off the hoodie and carefully draping it over her desk chair. When I crawl in beside her, Maeve is watching me with a look.
“Where’d you go tonight?” She pulls her comforter over her shoulder.
“Tex’s Guild locker.” I lean back against her headboard. “I just…wanted to be close to him.”
Maeve hums. “Any epiphanies?”
A wet laugh bubbles out, the tears pooling again. “Just that I miss him.”
Her hand finds mine and squeezes tight. “I know. But I don’t believe anyone is truly gone forever. They’re just watching from a different plane. I didn’t know him, but from what you’d told me, he wouldn’t have left you in this one if he had the choice.”
The tears roll down my cheeks and I swipe them away.
“Noah told me that he’d want me to be happy. But I don’t know how to be happy. All I feel is…rage. Sometimes it’s so much I feel like I can’t breathe.”
She shifts, so she’s sitting up beside me, back against the headboard, our shoulders barely touching. “Good.”
My head whips to her.”Good?”
She nods.”Rage means you care. You’re alive. The opposite of rage isn’t happiness. It’s acceptance.”
I swallow hard as her words stir the dust. “I feel like it’s eating me.”
“It will, if you don’t give it somewhere to go.”
A comfortable silence settles between us. Moonlight spills from the window, the leaves rustling against the glass.
“I don’t want it to turn me into something cruel,” I admit.
“Then don’t.”
“You make it sound so simple.” I laugh.
“No,” Maeve agrees. “It isn’t. But anger is fuel. You decide how to use it.”
I close my eyes, my chest still feels tight, but not like it’s collapsing in on itself.
“I keep thinking,” I whisper. “If I had just let Jace shoot Daniel when he first showed his face. If I had just moved faster. If I had?—”
“Stop.” Her voice is firm, my eyes snap open.
“There was nothing you could’ve done that day.”
“But you weren’t there, you don’t under?—”
“I know I’m not a Guild member and I don’t know anything but I do know this. You didn’t expect Daniel. He had this whole thing planned out and sadly you all walked into it. There is nothing you could’ve done differently or else you would have. Do not rewrite it to punish yourself. That’s not loyalty. You think you’re honoring him by suffering. You’re not. You honor him by surviving.”
I sigh, knowing she’s right. She usually is. “I don’t know how to be happy.” My voice is small.
Maeve exhales slowly. “I’m not sure anyone does. It’s not a switch you can turn on and off. It’s not something you owe anyone. It’s just something that happens."
She nudges me. “You’ll laugh again. You'll feel happiness again. Knowing you, I’m sure you’ll feel guilty for it.” A knowing look. “Do it anyway.”
A shaky breath escapes me. “And the rage?”
