Neither of us spoke for a long beat.
"You look good like this," she said suddenly, her voice a little breathless.
I arched a brow. "Like what?"
She gave a tiny, helpless shrug, her eyes darting to my sweater, my messy hair, and back to my face. "Normal. Almost human."
Turning fully toward her, I bumped my knee against hers. "You make me want to be," I said simply.
Her breath caught.
And then the space between us shrank.
Not rushed. Not sudden. Just inevitable.
The air buzzed with everything we weren’t saying, with the thousand stolen glances, the casual touches that lingered, the way her hand had never quite let go of mine.
I leaned in, slow enough that she could stop me.
She didn’t.
Her lips met mine, tentative at first, a kiss built not from desperation, but from wonder. As if we couldn’t believe this moment was real. Both of us, daring to hope it could be.
When she pulled back, her forehead rested against mine. "Thank you... for bringing me here."
I smiled against her skin.
"I'd bring you anywhere."
And I meant it.
Anywhere. Always.
Tugging the chain of the necklace out of the sweater, she held it out between us, flicking the hourglass over. The sands sat squarely in the bottom, and I berated myself for being such an ass that day. She thought it was meant as some omen, and I let her believe it was true because I couldn’t control myself. It was meant as a token of my affection—the hourglass, my sigil.
It bothered me that I’d been given the scythe. My importance represented by a weapon, by violence. I’d chosen the hourglass because it represented the truth.
“I don’t know why I kept it,” she admitted.
“I shouldn’t have said those things…”
“Why do you care?”
I frowned, my head still resting against hers. “You deserve more than what you’ve settled for.”
A shiver ran down her spine as she laughed, bitter and small. “I don’t think I was meant to have more.” A confession spoken into the dark so no one else could hear. “I’ve had all this time, Grim. Decades. Centuries, even. I went to college—twice. Different names, different hair, different cities. I started a dozen things and finished none of them. I told myself I’d try again, make a difference, matter. But it always fell apart, or I walked away before it could. I don’t even have a degree on a wall to prove I existed.” She exhaled hard, pulling away from me. “It’s pathetic.”
“You’renot pathetic.” I reached for her chin, guiding her gaze back to me. “You’re human.”
“Am I?” she asked, eyes flickering to mine. “Because sometimes I feel like a ghost in my own skin. Like I got left behind on accident. Like I wasn’t supposed to survive the war or the sickness or that car crash in ’89—and I just did. I keep thinking I have to earn it. Like if I do something good enough, if I suffer the right way, then maybe I’ll finally be allowed to rest. Or disappear.”
There was silence after that. Not cold or awkward. Just... true. It was her truth laid bare as a wound that had never stopped bleeding.
“You don’t have to earn your life,” I said quietly. “You don’t have to prove you’re worthy of it. Youareworthy. Because you’rehere. Because you breathe and hurt and try again even when it’s messy and half-hearted. That’s enough, Astoria.”
She shook her head slowly, a tear slipping down her cheek. “Then why does it never feel like it?”
“Because someone, somewhere along the way, taught you that salvation has to be bought. That rest is a reward instead of a right. But they were wrong.”
