Guilt overtakes me. “Shit.” I rock forward again, hating myself so potently that I have to sit still until my eyes stop burning.
“You shouldn’t have to do this,” I tell him. “I didn’t want you to have to do this anymore.”
“Do what?”
“Take care of me.”
Kris leans off the headboard. He’s silent until that silence drags me to look at him, and he holds my gaze for another quiet second with a force of presence, of heartbreak, of certainty.
“You are not a burden, Coal,” he tells me.
It’s like he reached down into my soul, to the foundation of my self-flagellation and anger, and grabbed onto the singular moment that started all this.
I’m not sure he realizes how enormously I needed to hear him say that. I’m not sureIdid, but his words are a soft hand cupping my cheek and telling eight-year-old me that it’s not my fault, it wasn’t something I did.
She left.
Hex left.
Kris hasn’t.
You are not a burden.
A few tears break free. “Stop it.”
“Here.” He hands me a glass of water that I don’t take. “Iris is bringing breakfast.”
“I’m not thirsty.”
“Drink.”
“Kris—”
He pushes the glass into my hands and he looks furious. “It’s not like you went on a bender and I’m nursing you out of a hangover, dumbass. What happened yesterday flattened me too, so let me take care of youbefore I pin you down and waterboard you in an attempt to get you to hydrate. Now, if you’re not going to sleep,drink the fucking water.”
I accept the glass. Take a sip. My lips crack and taste like salt.
“I love you too,” I tell him. Because I don’t say it enough.
He drops back against the headboard and tosses his phone onto my bedside table. I see mine there, face down, but I don’t ask for it.
Kris works his tongue against his teeth, and I hold the glass to my mouth, exhaling into it, fogging it.
“You would’ve taken it for me,” he says.
I lower the glass. Set it on the table next to my side of the bed. “Of course.”
His eyes snap shut. A breath, and he looks at me, all bloodshot and angry.
“Never again,” he tells me. “Never again, okay? Don’t you do that again.”
“Like hell. You want to take care of me? That’s how I take care of you. That’s how I’llalwaystake care of you.” My chest squeezes, a sharp stab of pain. “It’s the one thing I know I can be good at. I’m on the front line, all right? You have to accept that.”
Kris bites his lips together.
“Agree or I’m never drinking water from you again,” I add, voice so raw but it milks a smile at the edges of his lips.
“You must not be fully decimated,” he whispers, “if you’re back on your bullshit.”
