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putting distance between them, because no matter how much

she might want to follow Coralyn upstairs, she knew she

needed to go and she wanted to do the right thing. The selfless

thing.

Giana wanted to be what Coralyn needed. Who she needed.

She didn’t want her to leave. She wanted to be someone else,

someone other than who Coralyn had accused her of being.

“We’ll talk when I’m back,” Coralyn offered, the only

apology she could. She drank in Giana’s beauty, different now,

softer, softened by pleasure and longing, and the fact that she

didn’t have her guard up.

And then she fled, naked, in search of a cold shower that

could return the world to rights and remind her that this wasn’t

real. That she couldn’t want Giana, or need her, or rely on her.

It was entirely a lie, and one she needed to fix before Giana

remembered all on her own and time ran out.

Chapter 9

Coralyn

The most amazing thing happened an hour after she’d

gotten back to the hospital. She was holding her dad’s hand,

folded into the chair beside his bed, when he opened his eyes.

He was weak, disoriented, but he blinked at her and the haze

in his vision cleared. His eyes were the same blue as her own.

They were tired. She could see that. Tired in the kind of way

that was past bone deep exhaustion, tired beyond the

glassiness of being in constant pain, beyond the haze of

medications. They were the kind of tired that meant he was

ready to leave soon.

“Dad!” Coralyn gasped. She clutched his hand, maybe a bit

too tightly, and quickly relaxed her grip. “Oh my God. You’re