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AIDEN

I’ve spent weeks thinking about how to make this night perfect. Not just good. Not decent. Perfect. Because Kat deserves perfect.

It starts with a hoodie she wears once—oversized, washed-out black, with “Cigarettes After Sex”

written across the front in white letters. I remember her tucked into my side one rainy evening, humming along to a song with no beat, no drop, no chorus—just soft melancholy and floating lyrics that stick with you long after the sound fades.

That’s when I know. That’s when the idea starts forming.

And tonight? Tonight, is the night.

She has no clue.

I pace in front of her dorm like an idiot, the ticket QR codes already sitting in my Apple Wallet. I’ve even splurged on merch ahead of time—the hoodie she’s been eyeing is folded up in the backseat of my car. I can’t remember the last time I tried this hard.

Hell, I don’t think I ever have.

The door creaks open and there she is—Kat, with her usual soft expression and that half-smile she only gives me when I catch her off guard. She’s wearing light-washed jeans, a black crop top, and a zip-up jacket. Simple. Beautiful. So her.

“You look like you’re about to pass out,”

she teases, closing the door behind her.

“I was starting to think you were standing me up.”

She rolls her eyes but slips her hand into mine like it belongs there. “Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

“You and your damn surprises.”

She leans into me as we walk. “If this ends with you handing me a slice of pizza, I’m not complaining.”

I grin but stay quiet. Let her guess.

We get into my car, and I adjust the aux cord so it’s queued. The moment I turn the ignition, “Sweet”

by Cigarettes After Sex comes on.

She stills.

“You didn’t—”

I keep driving. Still don’t say a word.

“Oh my god,”

she whispers, her voice cracking with emotion. “Aiden.”

I glance over—just long enough to see her eyes go wide, like her heart leaps into her throat. “You didn’t.”

“I did.”

She covers her face with both hands, then pulls them away just as fast. “Wait—seriously? You got tickets?”

“Yep.”

“Cigarettes After Sex?”

“Yes, Kat.”

“Tonight?”

I laugh, can’t stop smiling. “We’re gonna be late if you don’t buckle in.”

She lets out a squeal that bounces around the car, pure joy vibrating from her. “You didn’t even like them when I first played them for you!”

“I never said I didn’t like them. I said they were slow.”

“They are slow.”

“They’re sad, too.”

“Yeah, but it’s the kind of sad that makes you feel good.”

I nod. “I get it now.”

She doesn’t speak for the next ten minutes—just sits there with her hand in mine, a dazed look on her face like she can’t believe this is real. Every so often, she squeezes my fingers or glances over and smiles like she’s taking mental pictures of every second.

That alone makes every dollar worth it.

The venue is packed.

Lights buzz overhead as people shuffle in from every direction. It smells like popcorn, perfume, and rain—the kind of summer night you don’t forget.

Kat’s practically bouncing. “We’re really here.”

I reach into my jacket and hand her the hoodie I stashed.

She blinks, then gasps, pulling it from the bag. “This is the one I said I wanted last month.”

“I remember.”

She holds it to her chest, grinning so wide it makes her nose scrunch. “I don’t know how to explain this, but this… this means so much.”

I lean in, brushing my lips against her temple. “I’m glad.”

She slips it on immediately—even though it’s still warm—and pulls the hood over her head with a smug little smile like the luckiest girl in the world. She looks cozy. And a little like trouble.

God help me.

We get to our seats and I realize just how close we are to the stage. I hadn’t noticed when I bought the tickets.

Kat turns in a slow circle, taking it all in. “This is insane. We’re so close. You must’ve spent—”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Aiden.”

I look at her, dead serious. “You’re worth it.”

She blinks like she doesn’t know what to say, then stands on her tiptoes and kisses me. Not just a peck—a soft, slow kiss that says she feels everything I feel. That her heart’s racing too.

The lights dim. People start screaming.

Kat included.

She grabs my hand, and the first note rings out across the venue—low, echoing, hypnotic.

The band walks out, and the entire crowd dissolves into silence. Then applause. Then silence again.

It’s the most peaceful chaos I’ve ever seen.

She knows every word.

I don’t know all the songs, but I don’t care. I spend more time watching her than the stage.

She sings, sways, whispers lyrics under her breath. Her thumb brushes the back of my hand again and again, like she can’t stop touching me, like she doesn’t want to let go. And when they start “Apocalypse,”

she turns to me, her lips already moving before she leans in.

“This one’s my favorite,”

she whispers against my ear. “It reminds me of you.”

I swallow hard, then smile. “Yeah?”

She nods, her nose brushing mine. “Every time I hear it. It’s like… how I feel when I’m around you.”

My heart slams against my ribs. “I don’t think anyone’s ever said anything like that to me before.”

She smiles. “Good. I like being your first.”

Then she kisses me—slow, deep, deliberate. I feel her heartbeat in her lips, in her fingers, in the way she presses into me like the rest of the world has fallen away.

I wrap my arms around her and pull her closer.

She doesn’t let go for a long time.

After the encore, we stay in our seats even as the crowd starts to thin out. Kat tugs the hoodie sleeves down over her hands and leans her head on my shoulder.

“I’m never forgetting tonight,”

she says quietly.

“Good,”

I say. “Neither am I.”

She turns to look at me. “Why’d you do all this?”

I think about it. I could joke. Deflect. Say something easy.

But I don’t want to.

I look her in the eyes and say, “Because I’ve never wanted to try this hard with anyone. Ever. And you… you make me want to be better. You make me want more.”

She stares at me, her bottom lip quivering slightly.

“I didn’t know I was lonely until you came along,” I say.

“But I was. For a long time.”

Kat blinks fast, then leans in again, her hands on either side of my face. She kisses me like she’s giving me something sacred.

“I feel the same,”

she whispers.

I pull her into my chest, and we sit there while the crew sweeps up confetti and the amps buzz into silence. The afterglow of the concert still hums through the air, but all I can focus on is the girl wrapped in my arms.

Kat.

Mine.

Getting out of a concert arena is not joke, especially when twenty thousand other people are there with you. Outside, the air has cooled. Kat kicks off her heels and walks barefoot next to me, holding them in one hand while her other stays looped through mine.

I wave down a cab and open the door for her, helping her in. As the cab pulls away from the curb, she leans into me and lays her head against my chest.

Her voice is soft when she asks, “Are you staying with me tonight?”

My heart does that stutter-thing it always does when she catches me off guard.

“Do you want me to?”

She nods without lifting her head. “More than anything.”

I swallow. “Okay.”

We get back to the hotel and don’t say much on the ride up the elevator. There’s a weight in the air—not heavy, not tense. Just charged.

Like we both know something has shifted between us.

When we reach her room, she unlocks the door, steps inside, then turns to look at me. “You coming in?”

I follow her.

The moment the door clicks shut, she wraps her arms around me again, her face in my chest.

“Thank you,”

she whispers. “This was the best night of my life.”

I run my fingers through her hair, kiss the top of her head. “It’s the best night of mine, too.”

We stay like that for a while—her in my hoodie, barefoot and beautiful, with her heart pressed against mine.

And for once, everything feels right.

Simple. Real. Ours

I don’t know how long I’ve been staring at the ceiling.

Kat sleeps beside me, her leg slung over mine, her breathing soft and steady. The hoodie I gave her is half-slid off one shoulder, exposing bare skin in the dim hotel room light. Her fingers are curled into the fabric of my shirt like she’s afraid I’ll vanish.

And part of me feels like I might.

Tomorrow is the surgery.

The thought alone makes me sore—not in my body, but deep in my chest. The kind of ache that doesn’t come from anything physical. It’s the weight of everything ahead, pressing down, trying to squeeze the breath out of me. I’ve done all the tests. I know the risks. The logistics. The science.

But none of that helps right now.

Sophia needs this.

She barely said anything when we talked on the phone two nights ago. She doesn’t anymore. Not about this. Not about how it feels. She’s tired. I can hear it in every pause, every breath.

All she said was, “There’s time to back out.”

Like I could.

She’s my little sister—the only person who’s known every version of me and never stopped seeing someone worth believing in. She believed in me before I had any idea who I was. I’m giving her my stem cells. But if I could give her everything—my strength, my future, my lungs, my heart—I would.

I close my eyes for a second and try to breathe through the anxiety. It hums beneath my ribs like an engine idling, waiting to roar. My hand finds Kat’s back on instinct, fingers brushing across warm skin.

She shifts slightly. “Are you okay?”

Her voice is low and raspy, thick with sleep.

I nod. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t.”

She props herself up on one elbow and looks at me. Her eyes are barely open, but they see straight through me. “Your chest is tight again. I can feel it.”

Of course she can. She always does.

I let out a long breath. “Just thinking.”

Kat moves closer, resting her head on my shoulder. Her hand finds my chest, like she’s trying to quiet whatever lives there.

“About tomorrow?”

“Yeah.”

She doesn’t fill the silence. She never does. She just lays there with me, grounding me with her body, her breath, her presence. That’s her way. She doesn’t push. She anchors.

“I’m not scared of the surgery,”

I say finally. My voice feels small. “I’m scared it won’t be enough.”

“It will be,”

she whispers.

I glance down at her. “You don’t know that.”

“No,”

she says, meeting my gaze. “But I believe it. And so does Sophia.”

That belief—it feels heavier than doubt, somehow. I swallow hard.

“She wouldn’t say it out loud, but I know she thinks… I’m all she has.”

“You are.”

The room goes still again. Not quiet, exactly—just thick. Like there’s meaning in every unspoken word between us. Kat runs her fingers across my ribs, slow and careful.

I speak without thinking. “Did I ever tell you what my dad said the day we found out she relapsed?”

Kat’s body tenses just slightly. “No.”

“He didn’t even look up from his laptop,”

I say. “Just muttered something like, ‘It’s always something with that girl.’”

My jaw clenches. “Like she was a burden.”

Kat sits up, cross-legged beside me now. There’s steel in her eyes even though her hair’s a mess and she’s still half-asleep.

“I’m going to say something, and I need you to hear me.”

I meet her eyes.

“You are not your father. And Sophia is not a burden.”

I nod, throat tight. The words hit harder than I expect.

“She’s lucky to have you,”

Kat says, softer now. “You don’t talk about it, but you’ve practically raised her.”

“Maria helped.”

“Yeah, but Maria’s not the one missing sleep every night. Or carrying guilt like it’s stitched into her spine.”

I stare at her. At the way she’s looking at me like she sees something I can’t. I don’t know how I thought I could do any of this without her.

She leans in and presses a kiss to my cheek, letting it linger.

“I’ll be there after. When you wake up. I’m not going anywhere.”

That almost undoes me.

I pull her into my chest and bury my face in her hair.

“Thank you,”

I murmur. “Just… thank you.”

The hospital is cold.

Not the usual cold. Not just air-conditioned. This kind of cold lives in the tiles, in the lighting, in the walls. It gets into your skin.

Even though I’ve been here before—for tests, blood draws, briefings—today is different.

This is game day.

Aunt Maria meets me at the check-in waiting room. Her hair’s pulled back in a rushed, messy bun. Her eyes look tired, but when she sees me, she smiles like she’s trying to transfer all the strength she has into me.

“There’s my brave boy.”

I hug her and let myself sink into it. For a second, I don’t have to be strong. She holds my hand as the nurse walks me through the final steps. There’s an IV. Paperwork. Monitors. She kisses my forehead before they start to wheel me away.

Kat hasn’t come yet.

And part of me thinks—maybe that’s for the best. She doesn’t need to see me like this. Pale. Hooked up. Half-dressed in a gown that doesn’t even close right in the back. But then the curtain slides open, and she steps in. She’s in sweats and my hoodie, no makeup, hair in a braid she clearly slept in. Her eyes land on mine and everything in me just… stills.

“You shouldn’t be back here,”

I whisper. She walks straight to me like I didn’t say anything and grabs my hand.

“I told you I’d be here.”

I stare at her. “They’re going to give me anesthesia in a few minutes. I might say some weird shit.”

She smiles. “Can’t wait.”

I want to say more, but I’m suddenly tired. More tired than I’ve ever felt. “Kat—”

“Shh.”

She brushes my hair off my forehead. “You’ve already done the hard part. Just rest now.”

The nurse steps in. “Ready?”

I look at Kat. Then back to the nurse. “Yeah. Ready.”

The meds hit fast.

Everything slows.

My last thought before the dark swallows me is Sophia’s laugh.

And Kat’s hand still in mine.

I wake up groggy. And sore as hell.

It feels like someone took a hammer to my lower back and then backed a car over my hips for good measure. My body is lead. My brain fog. But I’m awake.

The nurse leans over to adjust my blankets. “You’re doing great, Aiden. Everything went as expected.”

I nod slowly, my head swimming.

“Your aunt’s outside. And your… girlfriend?”

“Let her in,” I mumble.

A few seconds later, Kat walks in. She’s holding a coffee and a giant water bottle, but the second she sees me, her whole face softens.

“You look like hell,”

she says, voice gentle but teasing.

“Feel worse.”

She sets everything down and moves beside me. Her fingers brush my hair back from my forehead, careful, familiar. “I brought you a hoodie. It’s cold in here.”

“Don’t move me,”

I croak. “I might scream.”

She laughs under her breath and sits down, taking my hand. “Okay. No movement. I got you.”

Aunt Maria steps in next, her eyes red but smiling. “You did good, baby.”

“Is Sophia okay?”

I ask, even though my voice barely works.

“She’s doing great,”

Maria says. “Resting. The doctors are optimistic.”

Relief floods my system like a second dose of anesthesia. Heavy. Warm. Kat doesn’t leave my side. She holds my hand the whole time. Whispers things I’ll barely remember later. But I remember he head on my thigh, resting when the painkillers finally kick in.

Her soft humming under her breath—one of the songs from last night.

And her voice, just before I drift off again:

“You’re her hero, you know that?”

No. But hearing it in Kat’s voice makes me believe it. Just a little. And for the first time in weeks, I let myself rest.

Because the girl I love is here. And my sister has a real shot now. That’s everything, I could ever ask for.