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her, a small, beautiful, dainty package.
Giana’s heart pumped hard, her shoulders rising and falling
under the stress of the nightmare. The images lingered in her
head. She wanted to pull Coralyn close. To slide her across the
bed and wrap her arms around her and hold her for comfort as
much as she’d be giving solace. She didn’t want to wake her,
though. She’d been through a lot. If she hadn’t sought her out
in sleep or before sleep, then she’d just wanted that space for
herself, and Giana wanted to respect that.
She did wonder, as she stared down at Coralyn’s face, her
expression soft in sleep, if they had ever just held each other.
Coralyn had said that she hadn’t spent the night here before.
Was that true? How could it have been true? Had Giana slept
at Coralyn’s place? Probably not. Why? How could they not
have spent the night together before? It was unthinkable that
this might have been the first time. It was the first time that
she could remember, and something achy and warm speared
her in the chest at the thought.
She pushed back the blankets, slid to the side of the bed,
and swiped her hands over her face. She padded out of the
bedroom silently. That spike driving into her brain was back.
Empathy. That’s what she’d felt the moment she’d gotten that
call from the nurse at the hospital on Coralyn’s phone.
Empathy. Not compassion. She knew she’d known what
losing someone felt like. And then the nightmare. Maybe it
was triggered by the events of the night, but something was
gnawing at her. She knew loss. She knew love. She knew the
riveting heartbreak and the feeling that the world was never
going to be normal or okay again.
Giana found herself in her office on the main floor. Sitting
