Page 132 of Ghost Ribbon

The reason I didn’t want to make it public was the same reason I hadn’t said I love you back.

Because I was temporary, my heart was failing and my body was giving up and the medication wasn’t working the way it was supposed to, the doctors kept adjusting and readjusting and nothing was getting better - and I couldn’t, wouldn’t, let Alexei Morozov stand in a room full of people and claim me as his when I knew that I was going to disappear.

I couldn’t let him build a life around me in front of witnesses, let him hold my hand in public and introduce me as his when I knew that I might not be there for the future.

I wouldn’t let the world watch him lose me.

I wouldn’t give them that.

So I held the words I love you, I love you, I love you behind my teeth because once I said them, they would exist. They would be a promise I wasn’t sure I could keep.

“I’ll be okay,” I whispered instead.

When we got to Rei’s party, I walked in first.

I hadn’t been here before. The mansion existed at the end of the world, and I meant that literally. The drive had taken us through the city, then past it, then through stretches of nothing. The mansion appeared at the end of a forest.

The party wasn’t big. There were maybe thirty people. Forty at most.

“Marco!”

I turned just in time to see him break away from a cluster of people I vaguely recognized from Bloodburn - he reached me and picked me up, giving me a spin.

I caught a glimpse of Alexei over Rei’s shoulder.

He was standing near the entrance, just inside the door, his hands in his pockets. His eyes were on Rei’s hands, on the place where they gripped my waist.

He was glaring daggers.

But this time, I didn’t feel the fear I felt before.

Months ago, that glare would have sent ice through my veins. I would have stiffened in Rei’s arms, would have felt the old terror rise - the fear that Alexei would hurt him, that proximity to me was dangerous, that the people I loved would be punished for loving me.

I didn’t feel that now.

Instead, I felt something warm bloom through my chest, pushing past the ever-present ache, because he was cute when he was jealous.

That was the thought that surfaced and I almost laughed at myself for having it. But I trusted him.

I trusted that he wouldn’t hurt anyone I loved. The Alexei I had first met - the one who had stood over a body on a rooftop with blood on his hands - might have. That Alexei had been a different creature, but this Alexei.

The one who learned to cook for me. The one who counted my heartbeats in the dark. The one who had said I love you in three languages and meant it in all of them.

This Alexei wouldn’t hurt Rei.

He wanted to. The jealousy was visceral, written in every line of his body. But he wouldn’t act on it, because acting on it would hurt me, and hurting me was the one thing he had sworn he would never do.

My feet touched the floor. “You’re here!” he said. “I was waiting for you!”

“I told you I’d come.”

“You also told me you’d come hang out the last three times and you didn’t.”

“That’s because I was—”

Because I could barely stand.

“Busy,” I finished instead. “I’m sorry.”