Page 91 of Breaking You Open

“I won’t keep you,” Lilith says, but I can’t help but notice a tinge of hurt in her tone. As I’m putting my shoes back on, she adds, “You should come around more often, you know. It’s lonely in here without you.”

“You could get another roommate.”

She wrinkles her nose. “Don’t think so. They wouldn’t be as cute as you, anyway.” She gets up from the bed and gives me a hug. She smells like roses and moonlight, and her hair is glossy against my cheek. “They wouldn’t be as kind as you either.”

I return the hug stiffly with one arm. I was about to tell her we can’t be friends anymore, but after what she just said, I don’t have the heart to. Doesn’t mean I’ll let her walk all over me again though.

“Go on.” She nods toward the door. “Go ahead and meet with your guy. Leave me here to be single and miserable.” She does a fake sniffle and dries a nonexistent tear. “I’ll be okay.”

I know she will. We might never become proper friends, but Lilith is a survivor, and so am I.

When I get back home, Louis is working on his bike, shirtless and with the patio door wide open. The sun blasts unfiltered into the room, and the air seems oddly motionless, as if something in our home is preventing the winter chill from reaching inside.

“Isn’t it cold?” I ask as I hang my clothes up in the hallway.

Louis wipes his hand on a dirty-looking rag. “It’s sunny.” His gaze travels over me for a moment, stopping on my fidgeting hands. “Are you okay?”

I take a step further into the room. “I’m fine. Lilith…not so much.”

“Withdrawal?”

“How did you know?”

Louis snorts. “Please. I saw it from a mile away, what that girl and her boyfriend have been up to. What did she want you for?”

“I tried to make her feel better.”

“And?”

“I think I did.”

“See?” Louis says, a smile playing at the corner of his lips. “You don’t need me to take care of you. You can take care of others just fine.”

I open my mouth to protest, but maybe he’s right. There’s no desperate scramble for safety in my heart anymore—no panicked need for validation and assurance—though I’m sure those feelings will arise now and again. What I’m even surer of is my need to be close to him—how my whole body yearns for his heat, helpless to the force of the strange gravity pulling me toward him.

I wet my lips and take another step forward. “I might notneedyou to take care of me, but…Iwantyou to.”

Louis inclines his head. “That’s all fine. I want that too.”

“You do?”

“Of course.”

I take a final step forward, and as he opens his arms, I throw myself into his embrace. His massive arms encase my upper body, holding me tight.

Finally.I’m home.

“Never let go,” I mumble, the coarse hairs of his chest tickling my nose. “I mean it, Louis.”

“Okay,” he whispers. “I’ll never let you go, little Sparrow.”

Sparrow.The one who gave me that name is gone. Or at least, he doesn’t live in me anymore…And I am not who I was—not in thought, body, or name.

I lean back. “Actually…I’m Sam now.”

Louis smiles, crow’s-feet crinkling the corners of his eyes. “Yeah, you are.”

We turn toward the open door, his arm around my waist and my head resting against his side. I close my eyes and let out a deep breath, facing the sun.

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