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I woke up in the front seat of Chris’s car. His jacket was draped over me, and I was using one of his hoodies for a pillow. Woofarine was curled up in my lap.

It was dark outside. Heather was gone.

We never went to the hospital. Well, not inside. I didn’t want to go, couldn’t afford it. I fought Heather and Chris tooth and nail and finally they agreed that if I was still doing okay by the time we got there, I didn’t have to go in.

It had been six hours now since the kiss, and the swelling and hives were almost gone. I was groggy, sore, mentally and emotionally exhausted, and I had a bruise on my thigh from the EpiPen.

Chris asked me if I wanted to file a police report against Mike for assault. I didn’t. I just wanted to leave.

I slept most of the way back, dosed up on Benadryl. I woke up briefly when Chris pulled into a drive-through for food I was too out of it to eat, then again when Heather got dropped off. Now we were pulling up to Mike’s. The last stop.

Chris put the car in park, his headlights shining into the windows of the guesthouse with the stinking carpet.

I didn’t want to go in there. I honestly considered abandoning everything I owned in exchange for never stepping foot in that house again.

I couldn’t believe how much had changed in just a few days. My mom left the state. I was homeless. I broke up with my boyfriend.

I almost died.

I scoffed to myself.

“What?” he said.

“Nothing,” I mumbled. “Heather probably thinks we’re filming a reality show.”

He laughed a little but there was no mirth in it.

“She did triage the entire trip,” he said.

“Well, there’s something to be said about trauma bonding.”

A huff.

Chris stared out the windshield. He looked like a zombie. His knuckles were wrapped in gauze.

That whole chaotic fifteen minutes was still fresh at the front of my cloudy brain. The kiss. The realization I was going into anaphylaxis, the look on Chris’s face.

Mike.

It took almost everyone to yank Chris off him. He’d completely lost it.

And Mike just lay there. He didn’t even fight back. He just covered his face and let Chris pummel him until Jesse and Xavier pulled him off.

We sat in silence, and Chris peered out at the guesthouse. The clock on his dash screen read 11:16 p.m.

“I can’t believe it’s still Christmas,” I said tiredly. “It feels like the longest day in the history of days.”

“I want you to come stay with me,” he said.

I turned to him. “What?”

“I just need you to be where I can take care of you,” he said. “Please. I’m exhausted and slightly traumatized, and I just… I need you to be where I can see you and I know you’re okay.”

“How’s Mike going to feel about that?”

“I honestly don’t care.” He looked me in the eye. “I don’t care about anything anymore.”

I peered at him, at the haggard look on his face. He looked the way I felt. I didn’t know what my next step was going to be, and I was too tired to think about it.