Chapter 31 Eliana
ELIANA
hard crack /h?rd krak/: noun
He’s still there in the morning.
The hot-as-hell furnace of his chest against my back.
Hands and legs interwoven. It’s bad how good it feels, because last night was supposed to be a one-time thing.
A happy little oopsie-daisy that ended as soon as it began.
But we lingered in it too long, so now, I’m going to have to untangle myself. Literally and emotionally.
I get out and try not to pay attention to see if Bastian’s breathing changes or if he wakes up. I just run to the bathroom.
I take my time in there, splashing cold water on my face again and again.
I procrastinate my return by brushing my teeth twice and flossing for the first time in way too long.
When I do finally emerge, Bastian is awake and moving around in the kitchen.
The smell of ginger tea hits me before I’ve even crossed the threshold.
“Good morning,” he says.
I incline my head. “Morning.”
That’s about the full extent of our conversation. I take my mug with a mumbled thanks and go sit at the dining room table with my back to the kitchen. But part of me remains keenly tuned in to every single breath Bastian takes in there.
Yasmin emerges from her bedroom a few minutes later. “G’morning, my lovely— Oh.” I can hear the grin that spreads across her face as she clocks the tension in the room immediately. She drops her voice to a babied sing-song and starts to ask, “Did some-bunnies have a widdle sleepov—?”
“Yas,” I bark.
She closes her mouth. Thank God for best friends who know when to shut it.
Zeke bounds out behind her, as incapable as ever of reading a room. Sage is wheeling behind him as Zeke jabbers endlessly about something he saw on TikTok last night. I silently offer up a prayer for whoever showed him how to use TikTok to stub their toe really hard this morning.
“—and then the guy just yeeted the entire thing into the pool, bro; it was insane—”
“Dude,” Sage interrupts, “nobody over the age of twenty-five should use the word ‘yeet’ unironically.”
“I’m reclaiming it,” Zeke insists. “It’s retro now.”
“It’s not retro. It’s cringe.”
“Cringe is also retro. So is irony. Everything the light touches is mine.”
I laugh, shake my head, wrap my hands around my mug and let the warmth seep into my palms.
The morning stretches on in this strange new rhythm we’ve all fallen into.
Sage and Zeke bicker about video games while Yasmin scrolls through her phone, occasionally reading out headlines.
Bastian moves through the kitchen like a ghost, cleaning dishes that are already clean, reorganizing cabinets that don’t need reorganizing.
I just drink my tea.
“So,” Yasmin finally says, “what’s the plan for today? If I have to spend another afternoon watching Zeke lose over and over again at Mario Kart, I might actually lose my mind.”
“Hey!” Zeke protests. “I won twice yesterday.”
“And how many races did you two do, Sage?” Yasmin asks pointedly.
Sage chuckles. “Forty-seven.”
“I rest my case.”
“Actually,” I say, setting down my mug, “I have an OBGYN appointment today. I’m taking an Uber, though.”
The kitchen goes deathly still. I can feel Bastian’s tension from across the room. He doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t have to. His silence says it all for him.
“I can go with you,” Yasmin offers immediately.
“Thanks, but no.” I shake my head. “I need to do this one alone.”
“Eliana—” Bastian starts.
“This is my body,” I interrupt. “Therefore, my choice.”
“At least let me drive you,” he says. “The Uber thing is—”
“Oh, you mean that dangerous scourge that literally millions of people use every single day without incident?”
“Risky, is what I was going to say.” He ventures closer and pitches his voice in his I’m Being Very Fucking Reasonable tone. “You don’t know who’s behind the wheel. You can’t—”
I set my mug down hard. “Newsflash: I’ve been protecting myself my entire life. Since long before you showed up, Captain Control Freak.”
“That’s not what I—” He exhales through his nose. “I’m not saying you can’t handle yourself. I’m saying that right now, with everything that’s going on, it makes sense to be careful. That’s all. Just let me come with you. I’ll wait in the car. You won’t even know I’m there.”
“Believe me, I’ll know.”
“I just want to make sure you’re safe. Both of you. Is that really so unreasonable?”
My fingers tighten around the mug handle. I can feel everyone else in the room holding their breath, pretending to be very interested in their phones or the pattern on the tablecloth or literally anything other than this conversation.
“Reason has nothing to do with it,” I snap. “You just can’t let go. Not one second goes by that you aren’t hovering over me like a—like a goddamn attack helicopter.”
“I’m not—”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, you are. You’ve been doing it since the day I met you. Way before then, too. Always deciding what’s best for everyone else without asking what they actually want.”
He falls quiet in a way that hurts me. When he speaks again, his voice is husky and hushed. “I’ve already missed so much,” he tells me quietly, so only I can hear. “Can’t you let me have this? Just this one thing?”
The ache in his voice is real. I know it is. A treacherous part of me wants to give in, if only to erase that pain for him.
But we’re not normal, we’re not a couple, and if I start letting him in now, I’ll never get him back out.
“If you really want to help,” I say, my jaw set, “then respect my boundaries. For once in your life, don’t steamroll over what I want just because you think you know better.”
Bastian doesn’t respond. I hear him step back, then away. The front door opens and closes, and then he’s gone.
With that, the dust settles, but the tension remains. Sage clears his throat awkwardly. Zeke whistles. I flex and unflex my hands again and again, alternating between feeling like a raging bitch and a righteous woman of principle.
“Hey.” Yasmin’s hand lands on my shoulder. “Come help me with something in the bathroom.”
It’s the most transparent excuse in the history of excuses, but I don’t fight it. I let her take me down the hallway, one hand trailing along the wall until we reach the bathroom door. She pulls me inside and closes it behind us.
“Alrighty. So… what the hell was that?”
“What was what?”
“Don’t play dumb with me, Eliana Hunter. I’ve known you too long for that bullshit.” She pushes me to a seat on the closed toilet. “Are you actually comfortable going to this appointment alone, or are you just trying to punish him for whatever happened last night?”
My face heats. “Nothing happened last night.”
“Uh-huh. And I’m the freaking Queen of England.
” She sighs. “Look, I’m not asking for details.
That’s your business. But I saw the way you two were this morning.
The sexual tension in the air was like mustard gas.
I’m not even involved in your drama and it still got me feeling weird.
And now, you’re biting his head off for wanting to drive you to a doctor’s appointment?
It’s not crazy of him to ask, you know. He did play a rather key role in putting this bun in the oven. ”
“I need to do this by myself,” I insist numbly. “There are some things I just have to do on my own.”
“But why?”
Why, indeed? Important question. Central to the whole affair.
“Because he’s not going to be here, Yas,” I croak.
“After we deal with Aleksei and all of this is over, Bastian is going to disappear. That was the deal. So what’s the point of getting used to him being around?
What’s the point of letting him come to appointments and hold my hand and—” I swallow hard.
“No. I can’t build a life in my head that doesn’t exist. I can’t let myself want something I’m never going to have. ”
The bathroom goes quiet except for my ragged breathing.
“Oh, honey.” Yasmin’s arms wrap around me, pulling me into a hug that smells like her eucalyptus body wash.
“I get it, I do. But pushing him away because you’re scared of losing him…
That’s still losing him. Just on your terms instead of his.
Kind of like cutting off your nose to spite your face, as my Great Aunt Marianne used to say. ”
“At least it won’t hurt as much if I’m the one doing the cutting,” I whisper into her shoulder.
“Won’t it, though?” She pulls back, and I can feel her studying my face. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like it’s hurting plenty already. Both of you.”
I don’t have an answer for that.
“Well, whatever you decide,” Yasmin says softly, squeezing my hands, “I’m with you. But make sure you’re choosing what you actually want. Not just what feels safest. Sometimes, the safe choices come back to bite you in the ass the hardest.”