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Chapter Forty-Two

I t was late, the lights were off, and my hands were occupied with Cassie’s hair. She was on her side, slightly curled toward me, while my fingers pulled through the soft strands over and over again.

It calmed me to have her so close. To know she was right beside me. She’d been sleeping in my bed every night, seeming to need me as much as I needed her. And now I knew why. Understood it in a way that I had only guessed at before.

And all I got tonight was a glimpse. A fucking glimpse into the life she’d lived for the last twenty-four years. And this was while her mom was sober. I couldn’t imagine how much worse off it was when she’d been drinking. How much pain Cassie had had to bear on her own.

Not anymore, I thought, my grip tightening on the back of her head.

There was a level of intimacy that had appeared between us almost overnight since the first time she slept in my bed with me.

I didn’t fool myself into thinking it was because she had any real romantic attachment to me, but rather knew that she just needed someone.

I was so fucking grateful that someone happened to me. Accidentally, despite all odds. Thanks to Maggie, of all people. It was so strange to think that without my sister, I never would’ve met this girl lying in bed beside me.

The thought unsettled me that I almost didn’t get this life with her. It had me holding her a little tighter.

Her warmth radiated into me from where our bodies touched, and the smell of her hair overwhelmed my senses. I always waited until long after she fell asleep to let myself drift off with her, not wanting to miss a second of the moment.

Especially not when I knew these moments couldn’t last forever.

The panic seized me at the thought of losing her, so strong it felt like anxiety had its grip on my throat.

“Cassie?” I asked into the dark. “Are you awake?”

“Hmm?” She breathed out as I felt the rise and fall of her chest.

“I don’t want you to leave,” I said suddenly.

She yawned, turning against me, eyes closed.

“I’m here.” My grip on her head tightened, guiding it down to the crook of my chest.

“You’ll stay with me?” I asked, needing to hear it.

It was the only thing that could stop the incessant pounding of my heart.

“Mhm,” she murmured, too sleepily for me to be sure she was conscious of what she was saying.

“For good?” I asked.

She didn’t respond, but her arm moved around my body, grabbing hold of my vacant arm and using it to drape it around herself.

Was that an answer? Probably not, but I was too much of a coward to ask her in the daylight. Too scared to hear a refusal to what I needed more than air.

“I need you, Cass,” I told her, but by then, she was already too far away to reach.