“I like that one,” she murmurs, pushing her hair back over her ear. “But you can also get more creative with it. Maybe call me a vital organ, or something cheesy cute like that.”
Deadpan, I say, “My dearest liver.”
She chokes on a laugh, then swears, and says, “No.”
“Oh, sorry. Were you opting formy dearest heart?” I slink up the hall and grab the other pile of clothing before returning to her, waxing poetic the whole way. “The blood in my veins or the air in my lungs?”
Half smiling, she shakes her head. “The electricity in my brain; the spark of my soul.”
“The complex filtration system of my kidneys.”
She snorts. “You’re something else.”
“You’re everything that gives me life.”
Her free hand grazes past the backs of my fingers, and I latch on like I might die if I don’t. She squeezes and murmurs, “I’m trying my best. Promise.”
I wish I knew how to tell her that she doesn’t have to try. She just needs to accept that she loves me, because just that—justloving me—is good enough.
Chapter 18
?
I dobeggeth your pardon?
Morana
“Ah!” I yell when a dark figure appears beyond my bedroom doorway, entering my locked home. The light in my foyer turns on before I can so much as make a plan on which of my novelty antique piggy banks I am willing to smash over the head of an intruder.
In the yellow light, Kyran toes off his shoes, glancing my way up through the house. Business as usual, he lifts his hand, presenting metal. “I got a key from Crisis.”
I blink, brow furrowing as I lower my phone, which is still showing an old FrostPlays video from one of my favorite series of his.
It’s horror.
Because no genre makes you feel less alone thanhorror, right?
I press my lock button before the adult version of FrostPlays can make any sassy comments about my being all snuggled up in bed and watching his teenage self stare dully at jumpscares before saying,Anyway, moving on.
I hate knowing how badly he was hurting through these years in his past, but Iloveseeing how terriblyhimhe’s always been. It’s consistent. It’s comfort.
Shuffling through my house, Kyran stops at my bedroom door and braces his hands on the frame, hanging into my room while a SunMart bag dangles near his head. “Hope breaking and entering is okay, considering I didn’t break anything?”
He hopes it’s okay that he’s just appeared, unannounced, at eleven at night, with a key to my home that I didn’t give him?
I recall that this development means he no longer needs to ring my doorbell seven thousand times at eleven at night and say, “Yeah, totally.”
“Cool.” He releases the doorframe. “Do you want hot chocolate?”
At eleven at night? “Sure?”
“I brought marshmallows, too.” He digs in the bag, presenting pastel mini marshmallows. “Want?”
“Yes, please.”
He digs further, pulling out a bag of giant rainbow ones. “I’m going to put one of these in the microwave. Want, too?”
Uh. Yes, of course. I nod.
