Chapter 55 Conrad
Conrad
Malena followed a few steps behind me into the Scroll I didn’t want it to happen to me.
“I was thinking…” Mal smoothed her hand over my chest. “Switzerland this winter break…”
I pulled in a quick breath. Isha tried with no luck to convince her to come along. “Yeah?”
“Can Cora and Sabrina come?”
“Of course.” My thumbs swiped up and down on either hip. “The house in St. Moritz is huge.”
Finals were in a week, and after that it would be a month before the next semester started. I wanted to spend winter break with her, but I didn’t want to push.
“Good. Because they’re my family, and I love them. So…” She paused. “I want you to spend time with them.”
Now felt like the perfect time to tell her. Because in the time we’d been together, we’d been through enough that made me sure of how I felt.
“Can I tell you something?” I asked, tapping my fingers along her waist.
“Sure.” An upward inflection curved the end of the word.
The pins and needles were back and, fuck, I hoped they’d never go away.
“I didn’t think I’d ever be any good at this, but you make me want to be.” I swallowed hard against a dry throat. Suddenly everything I’d been able to write down in the journal was lost to me. “So I will be.”
“You already are.” She pushed her fingers through my hair.
“And I… I like who I am when I’m with you,” I admitted, taking her hands in mine.
With a steady cadence, firm and unwavering, I went on.
I didn’t want her to doubt any of it. “Malena, I love you.” The words settled in the narrow space between us.
She raised her brows, and I didn’t know what that meant, but dread set in. “You don’t have to—”
“Con,” she interrupted. My panicked gaze met her steady one.
“I’ve spent a lot of time wishing I was more of something or less of something else.
” Her next intake of breath was shaky. “And that’s on me.
But being with you makes me want to be radically myself.
And it’s a kind of peace I’ve never known before.
” She blinked a few times, clearing the mistiness that coated her eyes.
She straightened a bit and smiled, her hands pulling on my shirt.
“I love you too. I just wanted you to know that first.”
Relief moved down my body.
I leaned my head against hers and laid a kiss on her lips. Then one on her cheek, then a few down the column of her throat before wrapping both arms around her.
With a soft hum, she pulled away. She looked around, then over to her bag where the journal was. “All of this… it’s really sweet, Con.”
“Get used to it.” I brushed my lips against hers. “I’m working to get some of those annotation tabs in our story.”
Mischief glinted in her eyes. “Take me to that ladder and you’ll definitely get a few.”