Page 74 of Break Me

I hesitate. I haven't talked to anyone since I left her house last night. No calls. No texts. I have no idea what we're about to walk into. The only thing I know for certain is what I saw with my own eyes.

They were after her.

“We could stop somewhere else,” I say. “Grab you something new.”

She watches me closely. “You’re worried.”

I don’t answer.

“Is this about last night?” she asks.

Still nothing.

She exhales slowly. “Are you going to tell me?”

“No,” I say quietly.

Not because I don’t trust her. Because if something’s coming, I want it to hit me first.

Her voice stays steady when she speaks again. “I want to go home,” she says. “I’ll feel better if I have that dress.”

I hold her gaze, measuring, recalibrating, hating that I have to do either.

“All right,” I say. “We’ll go.”

She nods once, satisfied, then glances toward the bedroom. “I’m going to take a quick shower. Do you want to join me?”

“If I do, it won’t be quick,” I say with a faint smile.

Her mouth curves, eyes warming as she steps closer and presses a kiss to my jaw. “Good to know.”

I watch her turn toward the hallway, then smile. “I'll show you after you're my wife.”

She looks back over her shoulder, her smile softening. “I can live with that.”

I wait until I hear the shower start before heading to my bedroom.

Maybe they're still there.

I never opened the box after I packed it. I couldn't. Everything inside belonged to a life I'd already lost, and looking through it felt too much like saying goodbye all over again. But I remember putting the rings in there. I remember telling myself I'd know what to do with them someday.

Someday is now.

The box sits at the back of my closet, the cardboard worn thin at the corners. My name is written across the side in thick black marker. I don't know who wrote it. Whoever packed my parents' lives into this box couldn't have known they were handing me the last pieces of the people who taught me what forever looked like.

I carry it to the bed and carefully lift the lid.

The photographs are right on top. Dad's watch rests beside them, along with the letter Mom wrote that I never could bring myself to finish. I set each item aside with more care than necessary, my pulse quickening as I dig deeper.

The rings should be here.

Dad slipped Mom's engagement ring onto her finger when they were barely older than Raven and me. They wore those bands through every ordinary day and every impossible one, never taking them off unless they absolutely had to. When I buried them, I couldn't bear the thought of letting those rings disappear with them. I told myself I'd keep them safe until I knew why I'd been the one left to carry them.

I search the box once, then again, slower this time, lifting every folded paper and every keepsake tucked into the corners. My fingers brush something cold beneath a stack of old photographs.

My breath catches.

I ease them free, my parents' wedding bands nestled together with my mother's engagement ring, just like I remembered. The gold has dulled over the years, but the moment I close my hand around them, I can almost see my parents wearing these every day of my childhood. My dad reaching for my mom's hand. The quiet kiss he'd steal before leaving for work. The way they never seemed to question that forever meant forever.