Page 69 of Born in the Spring

Somethingin my own life had to come crashing down again, and right now, it’s me.

Hands—jolting to my system, then warm and steadying as they grip my arms.

Elara.Her name is a soothing wind through my head.

“You’re okay,” she’s saying to me. “It’s okay.”

I open my eyes on a gasp. The tears welled up streak the lights around her hair, giving her a halo and making her glow like an angel. My angel.

I pull her to me in a cling, my face in her neck and my lungs inhaling her sunshine. She holds me the same, until my breathing is normal enough, but for the skips that are always there in her presence.

My hold anchors to her as she stays close. “Were you in there?” I question, a strain in my voice from that one outburst, thinking she couldn’t have seen it, because I would’ve known she was near.

“I’d just walked in,” she says, her hands slow, calming caresses along my arms as her eyes move between mine withso much concern. “What happened?”

“I just lost it.” My head drops back against the wall. “I—” The stone bites into my skull as I try to shake the thoughts away as I say them. “My father served Mom divorce papers. Signed,” I add to stress the finality, the termfathera snap from my mouth, and Elara’s caresses pause in a squeeze at my elbows, her already pinkened cheeks reddening, a hardness in her stare.

More pieces of my heart broken by other people repair themselves every time Elara gets mad for me, for my mom. There’s not a lot that can rile her up, at least not outwardly, but me, and my family, are one of them. And she has that with us too.

“Then, this kid”—this is a snap too as I check myself from calling him a piece of shit—“joked about Shepherd. . .” The words come out slow and gloomy, and I don’t have to say the rest.

Elara’s caresses pause again in another squeeze, now at my wrists, and I wrap her fingers in mine. Her eyes have closed, and when she blinks them open, her lashes are wet.

“I’m so sorry. For both of you.”

I bring her hands up to my chest and hold her here. “I’m sorry for you too,” I tell her, while giving a silent thanks she herself didn’t have to hear what that guy said.

“I could’ve stopped it, Elara,” I say next, low, the strain back in my voice. “Both of them would still be here. . .”

She’s shaking her head. “None of this is your fault.”

And of course I believe it, for the moment Elara says it.

I scoff a laugh. “Well, what I did out there is. I should probably apologize. I think I broke his phone.”

She shakes her head again. “He’s an ass. I know him. And he’s old enough to know better.”

“You just called a kid an ass,” I tease.

“A teenager,” she defends, fighting an amused twitch in her lips as she scratches her nail over my shirt, sending a chill straight to the spot. “And he’ll get over it.”

My laugh now is a light breath as I shift us, so her back is against the wall. I brush my nose against hers. “I missed you.”

Her laugh is a shiver up her throat. “I might’ve felt that way too,” she teases, right before I kiss her.

I know she can’t taste herself on my tongue anymore, but her moan takes me back to this morning, inmykitchen, when I could.

Noises from outside pull her from me too damn soon, and I move back when her eyes dart toward the doors.

When no one walks through, she sighs, and I’m wondering when she’ll be ready to take that final step into being us.

“I should talk to my mom,” I say instead, shame heating my face for the moment I think how hers must’ve looked, how she must be feeling. “I need to apologize toher.”

“She understands,” Elara assures and reminds me that she would. “I have to get back out there too. . .” She hesitates, her gaze searching mine to see if I still need her to hang back.

I let her know she can go with a smirked, “Can I eat you for dinner?”

A blush creeps along her cheeks. “We’ll have dinner together,” she rewords with a laugh as she sways her hips on her walk out, and I let her go first, enjoying the view.

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