Page 84 of Fox
My stomach drops.
Reina?
“It had urgency. Jealousy. When I found out what she did, it hurt the way I expected love to hurt. And I think I confused ego with heart and pain with proof.”
I sit down on the third step. My legs decide that before my brain has a say in it.
“And then Lucy?—”
His voice changes when he says my name.
It does something to my ribs.
“It wasn’t loud,” he says quietly. “I kept waiting for it to be loud. And when it wasn’t, I decided something must be missing.”
He laughs softly.
“I had seventeen words for what I felt, and none of them were the right ones. Because none of them were loud enough.”
Dina asks something.
“When did I figure it out?” Fox repeats. “Gradually. And then all at once.”
I hear glassware against the counter.
“The waiting room.”
My breath catches.
“Four days in those chairs. Running out of ways to imagine what I’d do if she didn’t wake up.”
His voice drops.
“That wasn’t loud either. It was just…everywhere.”
Silence.
“But she still doesn’t believe me.”
That lands in my ribs like a punch.
“She’s getting there,” Dina says.
“I want to explain it to her,” Fox says. “Not around her.”
Enough.
I stand up.
I walk down the last three steps.
I push open the kitchen door.
Fox is behind the counter, drying glasses.
Dina is drinking coffee and looks at me like a woman who knows exactly how guilty she should feel.
Fox puts the glass he’s been wiping down. “How much did you hear?”
