Page 131 of Indigo Sky

A sharp intake of breath hissed through her teeth, and I jolted.

“You good?” I eyed her warily.

She swallowed, her breathing shallow. “Yeah, I just need to get comfortable. I’m okay.”

I lay as still as stone, waiting patiently as she gingerly rested her head against my chest and maneuvered her middle away from mine. All the while, she gasped, whined, and finally sighed with something close to contentment.

“Okay,” she said quietly. “I think I’m good like this.”

Carefully, I wrapped my arms around her and asked again if she was okay. She hummed and barely nodded.

“This is all I thought about.”

I bit back the insistence that she shouldn’t want me at all and instead said, “Sorry. I should’ve come up here sooner. I didn’t know if—"

“No,” she replied, then sniffled loudly. “I mean, this is all I thought about when … when D-Donny …” She took a deep breath before simply saying, “All I thought about wasyou.”

Fucking hell. I couldn’t let her do this. I couldn’t let her fall back into depending on me when Nate and I had done what we did years ago. And, sure, neither of us was the monster who had stalked her for years. We weren’t responsible for the hell she had endured tonight. But I had played a part in being the bad guy years ago. Nate had, too, and there was always going to be a place for him in my life.

“It was Nate who broke into your house,” I said, timing be damned. “We worked at Roy’s. You came in, he asked you out, and you turned him down. He never took rejection well back then. He … always saw it as a reason for revenge. So, he stole your wallet and broke into your house. It wasbothof us. I was there. I didn’twantto be there, but I didn’t leave until he was ready. He’s done some shit—I told you that before—but he’s not amonster.”

She barely nodded against my chest. “I know he’s not.”

“I only told you that it was me because I thought …”

“You thought Nate was following me.”

I sucked in a deep breath, filling my chest. “Yeah. I wanted you to stay away from me because—"

“I know why, Rev,” she cut me off. “You were protecting me.”

“But I didn’t.”

“But youdid.” Her voice was so full of insistence and strength, and I could hardly stand it.

I stared at the blank ceiling, brow furrowed. Trying hard not to fight her when I could only imagine how little fight she had left.

“The only reason I am even alive right now is because of you. The only reason my father is alive is because of you.”

I squeezed my eye shut, seeing Angela’s face. “But Angela—"

“I know,” Kate said, her voice broken and strained. “I-I know. I know, I know, I know.” Her hand lifted to touch the side of my face. “It wasn’t your fault. Nothing was your fault. I am here because you saved me, and I am making the choice right now to forgive everything else. Because whatever happened then doesn’t matter now.”

I grounded myself in the warmth of her palm against my cheek. I breathed in the disinfectant and cleanliness and her, forcing my mind to push beyond the guilt and pain I knew would revisit me time and time and time again, likely for the rest of my life. But for now, I chose to listen to her in a way I couldn’t listen to my mother or father or Officer Payton.

She was alive.

“I think I’m done bouncing,” I finally said, opening my eye to blink at that blank, bland, boring ceiling.

Boring. I could do boring for a while.

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah,” I replied, nodding.

“That’s too bad. You were pretty good at it.”

I muttered a small, contemplative sound. “Maybe. But I think I’m ready to move on to something … less risky.”

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