I pressed the pill to her tongue and guided a glass of water to her lips. She swallowed it with a grimace. As I settled back against the pillows, I realized I was still shirtless. Her hand drifted, her fingers gingerly tracing the line of my abs.
“Is this what all the girls get?” she murmured, her voice laced with fever and a strange, sleepy curiosity.
I huffed a laugh, shifting her more comfortably on my lap. “What girls?”
“I read tabloids. I see the pictures.”
“You read tabloids?” I asked, amused despite the circumstances.
“I’m a masochist,” she admitted.
I felt the scruff of my five o'clock shadow graze her ear as I leaned in, my heart doing a slow, heavy roll in my chest. She looked so small, so pale, and so entirely mine in the quiet ofthis room—a fragile version of the woman who usually spent her days trying to tear me down.
“Are you jealous, Ness?” I murmured, my voice dropping to a low rumble.
“Yes,” she whispered, the word hitching on a ragged breath.
I went still. I hadn’t expected the truth—not this clearly, not without the layers of sarcasm she usually used as a shield. But the fever had burned away her defenses, leaving nothing but the raw, honest girl I’d known ten years ago.
“Every time,” she continued, her fingers curling into the skin of my shoulder. “Every picture... every girl. I hate them. I hate that they get to look at you and touch you.”
She let out a small, frustrated sound, her face pressing harder into the crook of my neck. “It’s not fair, Elliott. You were mine first. You were supposed to stay mine.”
The confession felt like a physical blow to my solar plexus. I closed my eyes, a jagged, pained heat rising in my own throat. I had spent years thinking I was the only one haunted by what we’d lost, convinced she had moved on while I stayed stagnant in my rage. To hear her admit—even in a delirium—that she was still holding onto the "before" nearly destroyed me.
“I am yours,” I whispered against her hair, my grip tightening as if I could pull her back from the edge of the fever and into a reality where I hadn't spent a decade failing her. “I’ve never been anyone else’s, Ness. Those pictures... those girls... they were just noise. They were just ways to forget that I wasn't with you.”
She didn't answer. Her body finally slumped, the tension draining out of her as the meds and the exhaustion took hold.
“Mmm,” she breathed, nuzzling into my neck and sending chills up my spine. The old habit flickered one last time before her eyes drifted shut for good.
I smiled against her forehead, a sad, broken thing. I brushed a final, lingering kiss against her temple, the heat of her skinfinally starting to ebb. I didn't move. I stayed right there, shirtless and still partly wet, holding the girl who hated me—and realized I’d never been more terrified of a future without her.
twenty-nine
VANESSA
I wokeup knowing in my bone marrow that I wasn’t alone. I suspected I hadn’t been alone since the fainting debacle on the hike. I’d felt and heard the same three people the whole time, with an additional deep, professional voice weaving through it all.
“She’s alive,” Penelope said, her voice dripping with its usual sarcasm. “Great way to dodge an inevitable conversation, V.Never seen someone make themselves sick just to avoid a talk. You’ll have to teach me how you do it.”
I opened my eyes and shot her daggers.
Morgan was sitting on the edge of the bed next to me. She shushed Penelope and placed a cool hand on my forehead. “You feel a lot better. Less clammy,” she whispered with a small, relieved smile. She was going to be such a good mother.
Then I saw him. On the armchair by my bedside, Elliott was asleep under a haphazardly thrown blanket.
“He hasn’t left your side,” Morgan said quietly.
Penelope plopped down on my other side. With the two of them flanking me like a set of bookends, all I could manage was the truth. “Before we talk about anything else… I just want to say I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you guys. I see now how wrong it was to keep it from you. I hope you know I didn’t do it maliciously. I thought I was doing what was best, and clearly, I was wrong.”
“It was brutal finding out that way, Van. Even if you had the best intentions,” Penelope said, her tone softening just a fraction. “Don’t ever pull that shit again.”
I looked at Morgan. She was still staring at me, her eyes misty. “That dress is beautiful, Vanessa. I can’t even describe it. It’s perfect.”
I saw where this was going, and before she could turn into a puddle of pregnant hormones, I stopped her. “Your dream was always to wear your mom’s gown, but I knew you’d never allow scissors or needles anywhere near the original. So, the plan was always to make you a replica. I didn’t intend for it to be some grand apology—the dress was always going to be yours. I just figured it wouldn’t hurt my chances of being forgiven.”
She was glowing, and when she hugged me, I noticed for the first time that she was finally starting to show. She latched on tightly, and I felt Penelope’s spindly arms squeeze in, too. Pen pinched my side, and I moaned into Morgan’s hair.
