“You didn’t. But, I am sorry your life got upended.” Talon gives me a pinched smile, fiddling with fraying rope bracelets around his wrists. “Again.”
I scoff, holding the ring up and spinning it around on my finger. The turquoise diamonds brighter when they catch in the sun. “Think I should pitch this into the water?”
“Jesus, Bohdan—no.” Jay reaches out, snatching it off my finger and pocketing it. “You can have it back when you’ve regained your sanity.”
“So, never then?” Talon taps his temple. “Head’s scrambled on that one.”
“Easy.” I give him a flat look.
“Too soon?” Talon cringes before drumming his fingers against the hard shell of his giant suitcase. “What should we do tonight? Don’t have to fly out until tomorrow. There’s this boat you can have dinner on and watch the sunset—”
“No,” Jay and I both speak, cutting him off.
Talon holds his hands up, exasperated. “Do you want me to see if I can get last-minute FC tickets? Friend of mine from Sweden plays for Barcelona.”
They both turn to me, expectant.
“Yeah, alright.” I nod. “That sounds okay.”
Talon grins, knocking Jay on the shoulder. “Look at him, communicating his wants and needs already.”
“He’s got a long way to go if you count five words as communication,” Jay murmurs, but he glances at me, a softer, rare, encouraging smile stretching across his face.
He’s not wrong. I do have a long way to go.
“It’s bright.” Talon points up at the sun hanging in the sky before his thumbs start furiously moving across the screen of his phone. “Put your sunglasses on.”
“Thanks, Dad,” I mutter, and when I pull them from the neck of my shirt, I look back down the dock.
Tia and Sloan stopped about halfway down the cobblestone street. Sloan’s crying—taking these giant, gasping inhales that Tia mirrors, hands planted firmly across each of Sloan’s shoulders.
A line of lancing pain snakes down my scar. The muscles in my thighs twitch, ready to push past everyone still milling around as they exit the ship, ready to tear the world down to get to her—all those languages I learned to count to six in ready to roll off my tongue.
Tia turns her head, gaze catching mine, and even though she’s too far away, she mouths something to me when she squeezes Sloan’s shoulder.
It might beI’ve got itorShe’s got it, and either would be true.
Tia won’t let anything happen to her.
I wish it was me walking away with Sloan.
But she’s bigger and braver and better than she’s ever believed and someday she won’t need to count and she won’t need facts and she won’t need me—but I do hope when that day comes, she’ll still want me.
Sloan
The first thing I do in my new apartment, tucked a few blocks away from the university—the converted main level of an old, creaky house with a front porch and features that add character at the cost of practicality—isn’t have one of those nights you see in the movies.
The girl who realizes she needs to love herself first dances around her apartment, listening to music, and drinks cheap wine because she can’t afford anything else.
I sit cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by stacks of boxes. I tug down the sleeves of an ancient sweater I’m wearing—it was one of Bohdan’s in college, with a giant number seventeen painted on the back that started to peel over time—along with a pair of his socks that are almost worn through at the ankles, and I open my laptop to talk to my therapist for the first time in months.
“Hi.” I lift my hand in a half-hearted wave when Lu blinks at me through the screen, chin propped up by her hand, fingersdrumming along her skin. “Bet you thought you’d seen the last of me.”
Lu arches a brow before giving me a look. “I actually wished I hadn’t, Sloan.”
“Well.” I try to smile, but end up wiping away stray tears. “Here I am. Already crawling back to you.”
She considers, black hair swinging across her shoulders. “You don’t look like you’re crawling. You look like you’re in a beautiful apartment about to start a new job teaching something you used to dream about. You might be sitting on the floor, but I’d say you’re actually standing quite tall, Sloan.”
