I nod. “He woke up for a few minutes.” I wrap my arm around his shoulders and let him rest his cheek against my side. “You should go rest,” I say.
“We both should,” he agrees numbly. But he doesn’t move. He looks up at me from his chair. “You okay?”
“No,” I say simply and laugh, and the laugh turns into a ragged cry.
He nods like he understands too well. “Well, you will be.” He shrugs like it’s that easy. Then gestures toward the vending machine alcove with the two lonely chairs, one for him and one for me. “Come sit.”
I move away from him, and his arm drops away from me as I slump into the plastic chair, kicking my shoes off even though we’ve both said we need to get going. Declan reaches across the distance between us and takes my hand.
Surprise jolts through me. Declan isn’t really the kind of guy you go to for comfort. He’s the kind of guy you go to in a crisis, the one that won’t judge your fucked-up choices. But he has his moments.
Then he says, “You fucked me up, you know.”
I blink at him. “Excuse me?”
He sways my hand between us, the way I used to see parents swaying their kids between them and think,I’ll never have anyone to sway them with. “I used to be able to live with the monster in me. Kept him leashed. Fed him just enough to stay in line. Then you showed up.”
I stare at him, and he keeps going, voice low. “And suddenly I wanted to be more than sharp teeth and loyalty. You made me want things that aren’t safe.”
“Like what?”
“Hope. Peace.You.”
“I didn’t mean to change you,” I say.
He glances over. “I know. That’s why it stuck.”
I sway my hand with his, embracing the cracked skin between his fingers, feeling the fine hair on his knuckles, the callouses on the pads of his fingers. His hands tell a story of a guy who gets shit done when no one else wants to. “I don’t know what comes next,” I whisper.
He shrugs. “You’ll figure it out.” Then he looks over at me with a hard smile. “And then you tell us so we can follow.”
42
DECLAN
The silencein the car feels thicker than the dark sky above us.
Caroline sits beside me, arms wrapped around her stomach like she’s holding herself together. The streetlights paint her in gold and shadow, flickering across the bruises on her neck. Her hair’s tied back like she couldn’t stand it on her skin, and her lip is still split from where she bit it during the chaos. But she hasn’t made a sound since we left the hospital.
I don’t blame her. I don’t have much to say either. Except…I do. It’s just all rotting in my chest, ugly and loud.
I park in front of the house. She doesn’t wait for me to open her door. Doesn’t wait for anything. She walks in like a ghost, barefoot on the tile, the cold slap of each step sharp in the silence, and I trail after her like a shadow who doesn’t know what he’s haunting.
The hallway feels longer than usual. Stretched out by the weight of what we’re not saying. The house still smells faintly of gunpowder and lemon cleaner. Her sweater catches on theedge of the hallway table, and she doesn’t even react. Just keeps walking like she didn’t notice or doesn’t care.
She heads straight for the fridge and pulls out cold leftovers, rice and lemon chicken in a Tupperware. She doesn’t bother heating it. Just leans against the counter, eating with her fingers. The food sticks to her thumb before she licks it off, mechanical, like chewing is the only thing tethering her to her body.
I watch her chew. Swallow. Stare at nothing.
“You should sit down,” I say.
She glances at me like I’ve spoken in a language she doesn’t know, then shrugs and slides to the floor, back against the lower cabinets. Her knees pull up. Her chin rests on them.
It’s not what I meant. But it’s honest, so I let her be.
I sit down on the floor across from her, our backs to opposite cabinets, a safe space in between.
“He’ll be okay,” I offer.
