Page 848 of End Game

She takes both of Griffin’s hands and breathes in. “So.”

A few people laugh already.

She sniffles.

“I used to think loving somebody meant sacrificing something.”

That quiets the room.

“Sometimes it was little things. What movie we watched. Where we went to dinner. What plans mattered more. And I thought that was normal, because some of it is. Relationships take compromise.”

She looks down at their joined hands for a second.

“But somewhere along the way, I stopped knowing the difference between compromise and disappearing.”

Griffin’s expression changes.

“I stayed too long in a relationship where loving somebody meant giving up pieces of myself a little at a time. My comfort. My plans. My opinions when they were inconvenient. The parts of me that were apparently too loud or too difficult or too much.”

Clay bows his head.

Cami’s mother reaches for her father’s hand.

“I thought sacrifice was proof. That if I loved someone enough, I should be willing to bend farther. Give more. Need less. Make myself easier to keep.”

Her voice shakes, but she doesn’t stop.

“And after a while, you can lose a lot of yourself that way without noticing exactly when it happened.”

Griffin squeezes her hands.

Cami looks at him.

“Then I moved into a house with four men who were supposed to be roommates.”

Dex whispers, “Classic mistake.”

Clay elbows him.

Cami laughs through her tears.

“So obviously, that went very well.”

Her eyes move toward all of us.

“You were the first person who gave me something enormous without making me feel like I owed you pieces of myself in return.”

She turns back to Griffin.

“You gave me safety before I knew how to accept it. And then you—and all of them—kept showing me that being loved didn’t have to cost me who I was.”

My throat burns.

Dex’s head drops.

Ronan closes his eyes briefly.

Cami takes another breath.