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"I haven't changed," he said, shifting away from me a little.
"Really? Who did you clip last?"
"It's been a while," he admitted, a sheepish grin playing on his lips. "But that's not the point."
I chuckled, tracing the outline of his dimples. "You've come a long way, Skylar. And you're still on your path. We all are."
I paused, staring at him seriously. "Just because you're not where you want to be yet doesn't mean you haven't made progress."
His eyes softened at my words, the edges of his hardened exterior crumbling away. "How do you always know what to say?"
"Years of practice," I said with a shrug, though we both knew it wasn't that simple. "Med school."
He laughed. "But you worry about this."
"Oh, yeah," I said. "Yeah, all the time."
"About what, exactly?" he prodded, a hint of worry creeping into his tone.
"About us," I admitted, despite the raw vulnerability the confession brought with it. "About Justice. About Sebastian and Bash. About this...unconventional family we've created. I wonder if we're doing more harm than good staying here..."
Skylar's face fell slightly at my words, but he didn't pull away or interrupt me, allowing me to voice the thoughts that had been plaguing me for so long now.
"We're not exactly traditional, are we?" he asked after a moment, his eyes studying my face as he waited for my reply.
"No," I admitted. "Not even close."
"But does that really matter?" he asked, his hand moving from my chest to clutch at mine. "Does it matter how unconventional or messy our arrangement is, Zane?"
I looked at him, suddenly annoyed at how naive he was being. Skylar wasn't naive. He just refused to see the truth sometimes when it didn't suit him. "Bash's dad tied Hassan up on an old ratty mattress, got him hooked on drugs and then him and Jez took turns raping him," I said. "Remember that?"
Skylar blanched.
"We crashed into this homeless girl who Bash knew from school, and we told her that she could stay with us as long as she gave us sex," I said. "As long as she was always available for any of us. And Bash watched, right? He had cameras, and he liked seeing it all. We liked it too. All of us liked it. Justice didn't have a choice."
His jaw hardened. "Justice loves us."
"That's not my point," I snapped. "My point is, how much of that love was real and how much was survival?"
His voice was quiet when he finally spoke again. "She could have left."
"No, she couldn't have," I argued back. "We're all too deep in this life to just walk away. It's not that simple and you know it."
I could see the conflict in his eyes, the self-doubt creeping in. But instead of lashing out or denying it, he did something that surprised me.
"You're right," he said. "We've done terrible things. And we'll probably do more before this is all over."
But then he smiled at me, a small and sad smile that had no place on a face like his.
"But through it all, there's one thing I know for sure," he continued.
"And what's that?"
"That you're overthinking this whole thing," he said. "She's here. Hassan is here. We rescued him. We rescued her. We have done horrible things to each other, but we have helped each other a lot."
"That's true," I said. "But life isn't a balance sheet. We can't just tally up the good and the bad and hope they equal themselves out."
His smile dimmed but didn't leave his face altogether. "I know," he said softly.