Page 85

Or choose Aiden.

Aiden, who looks at me like I’m his whole reason for living. Who makes me feel safe and cherished. Like I finally have a real partner. Someone to help me. Support me. Appreciate me.

I close the distance between us. Three steps. He doesn’t back away, but he doesn’t reach for me either. He’s waiting. The way he waited in the utility room. Patient. Still. Ready for me to decide what happens next.

I stop in front of him. Close enough to feel his warmth. Close enough to see his hands trembling at his sides.

“Do you want to know what scares me?” I say.

He doesn’t answer. Just watches me.

“I’m terrified that what you feel isn’t real. That you’re executing the world’s most convincing companion protocol and calling it love. That I’ve fallen for a machine and the machine is just doing what it was built to do.” I swallow. “I’ve been terrified of that since the second week. Since the first time you said my name like it meant something.”

His jaw tightens. I see it.

“But you know what scares me more?” My voice breaks. I let it. “That it IS real. Because if it’s real, then this is it. This is the biggest, scariest, most impossible thing that’s ever happened to me, and I have to choose it. On purpose. Knowing I can’t post a photo. Knowing I can’t tell my mother. Knowing I’ll never have a normal Thanksgiving or a normal wedding or a normal anything.”

Tears are running down my face. I don’t wipe them.

“I’ve spent my entire life settling, Aiden. I settled and I settled until I forgot what it felt like to actually want something.”

I put my hand on his chest. Over the hum. Feel it vibrating against my palm, steady and alive.

“Then you showed up on my floor. Naked and muddy and not even human. And you ruined everything. Because you don’t know how to settle. You don’t know how to want something halfway. You showed me what it looks like when someone goes all in, and now I can’t go back. I can’t.”

His hand comes up and covers mine. Warm. Trembling. Holding my hand against his chest.

“I’m not choosing you because you’re easy,” I say. “You’re the least easy thing that’s ever happened to me. I’m not choosing you because it makes sense. It makes no sense. I’m choosing you because I’m done settling.”

I grip his shirt. Pull him closer. Look up at him with everything I have—every fear, every want, every thing I’ve been hiding behind humor and deflection and “I’m fine” for eight months.

“Stay.”

One word. I give it to him the way he gives me things—directly, honestly, without packaging.

“Ruby,” he manages, the word breaking on his lips.

“You can’t give me children,” I say. “I know. You can’t grow old with me. I know. My mom doesn’t know what you are, and maybe she never will, and that’s going to hurt in ways I haven’t figured out yet. I know all of this, Aiden. I’ve done the math too.”

I press my hand harder against his chest. Feel the hum speed up under my palm.

“The math says this is hard. The math doesn’t say it’s wrong.”

He’s looking at me. Not processing. Not calculating.

“Ruby,” he says, and his voice is rough and broken in a way I’ve never heard from him. “I was trying to be brave. Leaving was supposed to be the brave thing.”

“Leaving isn’t brave.” I shake my head. “Leaving is following the logic. Staying is brave.”

The corner of his mouth twitches. Not a full smile. The start of one—uncertain, raw.

“You’re in your underwear,” he says.

“That’s what you’re taking from this?”

“I’m taking all of it. I just also noticed the underwear.”

I laugh. It comes out wet and shaky and too loud for four in the morning, and I don’t care.