She sucked in a sharp breath, right in time with the knock on her door.
She stopped, and went to answer it. The door pushed open, and there he was. Standing there in the suit he had gotten for the wedding she didn’t have. Reminding her of that day he had come over for the fitting, and she’d been so damned proud of how beautiful her best friend was.
“What are you doing here?”
“I had to come get you,” he said.
“Did you come to get me... to be your friend or...?”
“Everything, Rue. Absolutely everything.”
On a sob, she threw herself into his arms.
“I love you,” she said.
“I love you too.”
“I didn’t know what to do,” she said. “I didn’t know if I should come back to you and tell you that we could be friends or if I should try and hold some kind of line. Because the thing is, I love you. Whether you’re giving me exactly what I ask for or not. I love you. I hated being without you. I hated it so much.”
“Me too,” he said. “But I’m grateful. Because you taught me something. You taught me that I had to deal with myself. I was scared of being without you. Of being alone, and I never wanted you to be my everything because then if I lost you my world would end. I would be trapped in the cave all over again. I couldn’t face it.” He took a deep breath. “I didn’t trust you, but it’s because I didn’t trust myself either. I don’t trust my feelings, because they’ve been twisted and used before. But you’ve been there for me, Rue. You deserve my trust. You don’t deserve... You didn’t deserve what I did.”
“Justice,” she said. “It’s okay that you didn’t know what to do in a situation neither of us have been in before. You didn’t need to be perfect. I know it seems like I was asking you to...”
“No. You were asking me to stand on my own two feet, and not use you to hold me up while I denied you what we both needed. You had to leave for me to realize it was too late.” He took his grandmother’s necklace out of his pocket and held it out to her. “I want you to keep this.”
“Then it’s not borrowed anymore,” she said.
“No. You’ll have to borrow something else for our wedding. But this is for you to keep. I want you to wear it. On your way to our better life. I have loved you from the beginning. But I didn’t know what love was. And if I would’ve paid fucking attention, Rue, I would’ve realized that you were showing me.”
“It wasn’t just you. I was afraid of it too. I was afraid of giving all of myself to someone. I could feel myself wanting it from you. And I didn’t ever want that to turn me into my parents. But that isn’t us. It never could be.”
He shook his head. “No. You were right. You never did anything to deserve my lack of trust. It wasn’t you I was afraid of. I was just afraid in general. But our friendship was love without risk. I guess that was what was left. For us to take a risk. Do the zip lining, the polar plunge.”
“Was I practicing for the two of us to get together the whole time?” Rue asked.
“Maybe. Maybe.”
“I love you,” she said.
“I love you too. I always have. It just took me this whole time to figure out how much I was willing to risk for that.”
“It turns out we were both willing to risk everything.” Then she laughed. Because it was true. They were just everything. That was all.
“Everything.”
“I’ve always thought you were the most beautiful man in the world. But I didn’t think you could ever really belong to anyone,” she said.
“Don’t you know, Ruby Matthews, I belong to you. Always.”
She knew that it was true. Because she knew him.
Justice King was her best friend in the whole world.
And he always would be.
“Remember how we talked about me giving you away at your wedding?”
“Yes,” she said, laughing.
