Page 98 of Ghost Ribbon

I opened my mouth but he continued.

“And every time Dimitri calls you because he needs something,” Marco went on, “you go out of your way to get it done. Even when you could say no.”

“That’s familial obligation.”

“I think if something happened to Ilya or Dimitri, you’d be really sad.”

I had never thought about it that way.

I had never thought about it at all, in fact. Ilya and Dimitri had always existed in a specific category in my mind. Extensions of myself, in a way. Parts of the structure I had been born into and navigated with the same efficiency I applied to everything. They were there because they had always been there. I didn’t examine what that meant. I didn’t examine what I would feel if they weren’t there.

But now Marco had asked, indirectly, and I was forced to consider it.

If something happened to Ilya.

If I never heard his ridiculous laugh again. If I never watched him collapse in theatrical horror over a spider. If his particular brand of cheerful chaos vanished from the world and left a silence where he used to be.

If something happened to Dimitri.

If his voice never came through my phone again. If I never again stood beside him in a ring, watching him grin, believing against all evidence that one day he would put me on my back.

I didn’t think I would feel nothing.

I had always considered them extensions of me.

But extensions don’t leave holes when removed.

And Ilya and Dimitri, if removed, would leave holes.

I didn’t speak because I didn’t know what to say.

Marco had, in approximately two minutes, dismantled a framework I had carried since childhood.

He had seen things I hadn’t known were visible.

I was speechless.

I didn’t like being speechless.

But I couldn’t seem to find my way back to language.

Marco leaned in. “You’re sweet,” he said again.

And then he pressed his lips to my cheek.

I melted.

There was no other word for it.

The tension I carried in my jaw, in my shoulders, in the permanent stillness I maintained behind my eyes - all of it loosened at once, dissolving under the warmth of his mouth against my skin. My breath left me slowly. My hands, which had been resting at my sides, went slack against the blanket.

Marco pulled back.

He looked at me nervously, as if he had only just realized what he had done.

“Sorry,” he whispered. “Was that—? I shouldn’t have—”

“Don’t apologize,” I said.