Page 104 of John + Siena: The Complete Duet

“You didn’t want to sleep, or what?”

“I had things on my mind.”

“Like what?”

Slowly, John turned to face her. “Just … some things.”

Siena didn’t want to push, or pry. She didn’t want to do or say something that might offend him, or worse, make him throw up those walls of his. “You can tell me or talk to me about anything, John. You know that, right?”

“I figured that last night, yeah.”

“Is there something you want to talk about?”

She hugged the blanket she had brought from the bed closer around her shoulders. It smelled like him, and her. It grounded her for whatever he might say next. She needed that.

John’s easy smile drifted away, and so did his gaze. “There’s something, yeah. I didn’t know when or how to bring it up. I kind of have to, though. And if you want to tell me to go after, then I get it. Don’t feel like—”

Siena held up a hand. “Can I just … preface this with something?”

She had to be honest.

Especially if he was.

“All right,” John murmured. “What?”

“Let me say first that it was accidental, and I wasn’t snooping. I don’t do that kind of thing to people because I don’t want them doing it to me. I stumbled on it by accident, and different things that I had heard made me look up some things.”

John’s jaw tightened. “Heard about me?”

“People say things, and sometimes I overhear them. That’s not what’s important, though.”

“Might be.”

“Not right now, John.”

His posture had stiffened, and he turned slightly like he wanted to put a barrier there between them.

“I was looking for something to put away the food I made at your place, and I found meds above the fridge. I didn’t touch them, and I didn’t go through them. I saw what a couple of them were, but that was it.”

“Wait, you—”

“No,” Siena said fast. “I didn’t go through anything. I wasn’t looking through your shit, or prying. I found them on accident.”

“No, I meant, wait and go back. So, you found my meds and didn’t think to mention it to me?”

“They’re yours, John.”

He blinked. “What?”

“The medication—whatever it’s for. That’s all your business, not mine. It’s personal, okay. So, I figured if you wanted to tell me, or if you needed to then you would. It wasn’t my place to get in your business, and demand answers.”

John cleared his throat, but he still wouldn’t meet her gaze. “And you, uh, said you looked some shit up?”

“It doesn’t matter. This is about you, and if you want to tell me something you think I should know, then go ahead and do that. Do it because you want to do it, and because you feel like I should know. Don’t do it because you feel like you owe me something. Not for what I found, or what you think I might know, or—”

“I was diagnosed with Bipolar I when I was seventeen.”

Siena thought hearing him say those words might make her suspicions all too real, but if anything, she was just … proud of him.