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For a few moments, she breathed deeply, then she started to shake.

‘Hey,’ I murmured. ‘It’s okay.’

It was as though once Brooke had started shaking, she couldn’t stop. I decided to reach over to turn on the lights again so I could see her, and when I turned back, she was facing me and there were silent tears streaming down her cheeks.

I gently tugged on her hands until she swung her legs around to sit on the edge of the bed next to me.

‘Take a deep breath,’ I said, knowing from experience that sitting up like this, instead of hunched over, was a better way to get a panic attack under control.

Brooke shook her head, her eyes still panicky and her shoulders trembling.

‘You can do it. I know you can. Come on, deep breath.’

‘Cold,’ Brooke gasped, though it wasn’t really that cold in the room. I took her hands again, which were like ice, and rubbed them to warm her back up.

‘Breathe with me,’ I told her, and took deep, exaggerated breaths until she started to copy me.

She was still silently crying, and I reached up to swipe the tears off her cheeks with my thumbs.

‘You are so fucking brave,’ I told her. ‘You are the bravest person I’ve ever met.’

‘Youstabbedsomeone,’ she said incredulously, and she wasn’t quite in control of her voice or her breathing yet.

That made me laugh. ‘I’d do it again.’

Slowly, Brooke’s shaky breaths evened out, and I felt it was safe to dash into the bathroom to grab some tissues for her to blow her nose and dry her tears.

‘Are you okay?’ I asked.

‘Not really.’

‘That’s all right. You don’t have to be. Do you want to talk about it?’

She shook her head. ‘I’m so tired.’

‘Come on,’ I said, nudging her back under the covers.

As soon as I settled on my back, Brooke rolled over toward me and I opened my arms to her so she could settle with her head on my shoulder.

We fell asleep like that.

When I woke up the next morning, Brooke was in the shower again, and I stretched out into the space she’d left behind. I guessed it was pretty late from the angle of the sun pouring in through the gap in the curtains. I’d crashed, and every time I’d woken up during the night, Brooke had been pressed up close to me.

I forced myself not to think about what that could mean.

While Brooke was taking the longest shower of her life, I rolled onto my side and dozed for a while. I felt like I could sleep for hours more, and I couldn’t remember what time we needed to check out, and if that was soon. I was also insanely hungry.

Even though we weren’t that far from Nashville, I wanted to stay right here. Maybe for a month. Or forever.

We definitely didn’t have enough cash to stay for a month. We’d have to go back to a city and find another convention hotel full of careless businessmen who we could steal from, and by that point we’d probably be in Nashville anyway, so it was all moot.

Brooke came out of the bathroom in jean shorts and her wolf-howling-at-the-moon T-shirt, and I forced myself to sit up.

‘How are you feeling?’ I asked.

‘Better. A lot better.’ She came over to sit on the edge of the bed.

‘Do you remember anything?’