Page 325 of Safe With You

Tasha’s words came back.

I didn’t know if I looked more like myself.

I didn’t even know what that meant.

But I knew something had changed.

A month ago, my evenings looked exactly like this. Mila asleep upstairs. A quiet house. Work waiting if I wanted it.

I never thought anything was missing.

That was the part I kept coming back to. Luna didn’t walk into an empty space I’d been waiting for somebody to fill. I had a life before her. I still did.

Somehow, she’d simply become part of the way I thought about things. I saw something Mila would like and wondered what Luna would say. Saturday came up and I accounted for her without realizing I’d done it, not because I had to, but because I wanted to.

Maybe that was what Tasha saw.

It wasn’t that Luna made me myself again. I never stopped being me.

I just stopped imagining that this part of me would have somewhere to go.

My phone was still in my hand.

I opened our messages.

You busy?

The typing bubble appeared.

Depends.

I smiled.

Thief.

I adapted it.

That’s still stealing.

Prove it.

I shook my head.

Then typed what I meant to ask in the first place.

Come over.

There was a pause.

Long enough that I wondered if she was already settled in for the night.

Then—

Why?

I looked around the living room.

There was no reason I needed her here.