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“Scared…you?”
“Do you not remember asking me to kill you?”
My heart constricts.
Calculation ripples in his dark, menacing eyes like he’s debating whether or not to speak.
While he deliberates, I pretend panic isn’t eating me alive. If I asked him to kill me, what else don’t I remember? I wouldn’t have babbled anything important, right? I’m still a professional. I would die before giving up my plots prematurely.
Is that… Would that be why? Would accidentally telling him everything be why I asked him to kill me?
How much does he know?
My gaze catches on his tablet, and I find myself reaching for it.
He stops my hand. “You don’t remember.”
Mouth dry, I murmur, “I need to check your very lovely notes…”
“Checking someone else’s notes because you didn’t pay attention in class is cheating.” His eyes narrow. “You don’t cheat.”
“I didn’t realize there would be a quiz.”
A brow arches. “A quiz?”
I swallow, hard. “I don’t want to flunk.”
“Briar, I’m not testing you. I’m worried.”
My heart fractures. After everything I do and don’t remember, he’s…worried about me?
Releasing my hand, he scrubs his face. “You were sobbing. Hysterical. I’ve been up all night replaying everything that happened, and it seems so much like you were trying to get me furious so I’d…” His voice cracks when he swears, and all his lethal calculation melts away until he’s just plain…miserable. He whispers, “Are you okay?”
Am I…
No.
Not even a little bit.
My attention drops to my midsection, and I discover a wide hole splitting the corset-style seam of my dress. “My clothes are ripped…”
“Briar. Please don’t change the subject.”
“Why are my clothes ripped? This is one of my favorite dresses.”
“Briar.” His grip around my thigh pries into my muscles, bruising.
I flinch. “Fine. Fine. I guess I’m a depressive, angry drunk, Rowan. I don’t know what else you want from me.”
“Everything, but that’s not the point right now. I need to know that you’re okay.”
Okay?
Are any of us okay? Okay feels like the kind of luxury the ignorant enjoy. I’m too far gone to ever be okay. But I am content. “Every day I wake up and choose happiness. It takes effort. Especially these days. I’m not okay, but I’m here, and here is full of possibilities. I like here. There’s so much good here. So at least as far as I can help it, I’m not going anywhere else.”
Putting his tablet back on the nightstand and slipping the water cup from my fingers to set beside it, he wraps me in an uncompromising hug. His breath fans through my hair. “I’m here, Briar, if you need me.”
My chest stings. Guilt rises like a tide to swallow me whole. Maybe he hasn’t exactly forgiven me, but despite the roughness, he is still too kind for words. Throat raw, head pulsing, I whisper, “I can take care of myself.”
