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But she did what she had tofor me.
“You were right. We’re so goddamn alike, we actually did destroy each other.”
“Sometimes you have to hit the bottom to see what’s above you.”
“And? What was above you?”
“That’s a conversation for tomorrow.”
When she leaves the room, I follow her out into the hall again, hesitating. She’s talking about tomorrow like I’ll still be here. Am I sleeping here? With her? In another room? Should I offer to take the couch? Go somewhere else? I don’t want the couch. I don’t want to go anywhere else. I want to stay right next to her, forever.
Before I can decide what to do, Lex starts in the direction of her room, saying over her shoulder, “You can use my shower.”
Reece
The private shower is nice. The hot water’s nicer. Even though I have the bathroom all to myself, I still keep my back to the wall. It’ll be a long time before I see myself breaking that habit. I have to get used to being in the free world again. Getting released from prison is like crash-landing on Earth after traveling through space. Everything you learned in your initial and somewhat gradual adaption, you have to unlearn in an instant. Your entire way of living changes as soon as you leave the confines of that barb-wired, patrol-guarded fencing. You’re incarcerated one minute, then the next you’re not, and you’re expected to know how to behave, not like the animal you were just treated as, and usually behaved as, but like the person you practically forgot you once were.
After scrubbing every inch of my body twice, I wrap the towel around my waist since I don’t have any clean clothes, and go out to Lex’s bedroom. She’s fast asleep though, on her side, facing me, with a leg sticking out of the covers, almost identical to the first time I saw her. And just like I did then, I stand over her, letting my gaze run wild over all the porcelain skin on display.
She’s not wearing an eye mask and she’s not sweating, so I take that as a good sign. We didn’t get to talk about her health yet but she seems better than she ever did. She seems…happy. She seems free.
She is free.
I trace her jaw with my middle finger. Luckily, Kordin didn’t leave a scar on her face. On her heart though? I’m sure he left a lot of damage there. Him and Cyrus both.
Both men are gone from our lives now. One in prison temporarily, the other in hell for eternity. Lex and I had to sacrifice a lot to get them there, but we did it. We did it for each other. We did it for our future.
Lex’s lips pull to one side as she murmurs, “Stalker.”
“Only to you,” I say, my gaze falling down the rest of her body.
Her fingers have more dainty tattoos now—a new one on her right trigger finger, another on her left ring finger; both of them flowers.
I have new ink, too; a few of them flowers as well. They’re not great tattoos, having gotten them while on the inside, but each one holds a special meaning, the biggest one being the Snow White Hibiscus on my back, right where Lex stabbed me.
Right where IthoughtLex stabbed me.
I touch the tat where Lex’s wedding ring used to be.
“What happened with you and Kordin?” I know he was found guilty and charged for what he did, but I don’t know how that affected Lex. Is she still stuck in a legal marriage with him?
“I divorced him.”
“Is the flower for him?”
“No, rookie. It’s for you.”
“What flower is it?”
“Petunia.”
Petunia. Part of the Nightshade family, but not poisonous.
“Why’s it for me, Snow?”
“Because of its meaning. ‘Your presence soothes me.’”
It does? Her presence soothes me, too.
