CHAPTER FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN YEARS OLD
· · ·
Things went back to whatever our version of normal was.
After the window. After him pulling me in close and not saying anything and leaving before morning.
After I need you so much floating in the dark of my room like something I’d imagined.
I didn’t bring it up.
Of course I didn’t.
I just — let him come back.
The way I always do.
· · ·
I start seeing Cassian again.
Not every day.
Not like before.
But I’ll take anything he gives me.
Always.
I know that about myself now.
I know it’s toxic.
I know I die a bit every time.
I do it anyway.
Because there’s a version of my life without him in it and I’ve had a glimpse of what that feels like and I’d rather be this — small, hopeful, slightly wrecked — than go back to those two weeks of nothing.
· · ·
I smile the second I see him waiting on the curb.
Like nothing happened.
Like the door and the driveway and the empty bed in the morning are just — part of it. Part of him. Part of what I’ve agreed to by loving him the way I do.
“Cass!” My dad calls out, slowing the car. “Jump in.”
He pretends to drive past, speeding up for a second as a joke.
“Dad,” I groan.
Cassian just laughs, jogging alongside before hopping in like he’s done it a hundred times.
Which he has.
He’s already talking before the door shuts.
“— and then he tries to say it wasn’t due today but it literally says it on the board —”
I let him go.
And on.
And on.
Just watching him.
Listening to his voice fill in all the empty space he left behind.
I’ve missed this so much it embarrasses me.
· · ·
And then —
I hear it.
A name.
“Abby.”
My stomach drops.
Who the fuck is Abby?
I keep my face neutral.
Play it cool.
Don’t let on that it bothers me.
“So who the fuck is Abby?”
“Ro, no cursing,” my mom says immediately.
“Sorry, Mom.”
But I’m still staring at him.
Waiting.
He shrugs like it’s nothing.
“Just someone I met. She’s in my history class. We got seated together.”
Just someone.
Right.
I nod slowly.
“Oh. Cool. Cool.”
I’m already planning her funeral.
Nothing fancy. Just the basic arrangements.
· · ·
He keeps talking.
Now I’m actually listening.
Red hair. Green eyes. She jumped the fence with him to ditch last period, he says, grinning. They’d sprinted three blocks before she started laughing so hard she couldn’t run anymore. He’d had to drag her the rest of the way.
I watch his face while he tells it.
The way it opens up when he talks about her.
Something easy in his expression that I recognize — it’s how he looks on the roof. How he looked with his hand in mine.
My jaw tightens.
“Wow,” I mutter. “She sounds stupid and ugly.”
“Ro!” My mom snaps.
“SORRY.”
Cassian laughs.
Like it’s the funniest thing I’ve ever said.
He nudges my head with his fist, softer than the laugh.
“Relax,” he murmurs under his breath. “I’m still yours.”
· · ·
My heart stutters.
Just like that.
That’s all it takes.
He knows exactly what he’s doing when he says things like that.
I’m not sure he means to. I’m not sure he even knows he does it.
But some part of him understands — has always understood — exactly how much I’ll forgive for one sentence like that.
So I forgive it.
The disappearing.
The door.
The morning after.
Abby’s name in his mouth like something that belongs there.
All of it.
Gone.
Because I have so much to give.
And I only want to give it to him.
So I will.
In whatever way he lets me.
Even if it’s not the way I want.
Even knowing — it will never be the way I want.