Page 97 of Love Bound

She says something and then I hear it again. "Come here." She pulls me down next to her on the bed and presses her hands on either side of my face. "You are never to say that again. Ever. It’s not your fault what happened. It’s not." She lifts a hand to her chest. "Look. Look how pretty this is."

The stone dances when she leans forward, and it reflects the blue in her eyes while the green sea glass—brushed by sand—casts light with a humbled brilliance. It looks beautiful against her golden skin.

"But—"

"Stop,” she says. “It was awful. It was scary. I thought I was going to die—"

I try to pull away from her, to look away. We haven't talked about what happened, hardly at all. All I know is after two sessions, she turned down the rest of the counseling appointments they offered her at the hospital.

"Hold still, let me finish," she says.

"Claire, it was just luck. It was luck that we barely got to you in time. You nearly died—"

She braces my face, shifts, and climbs onto her knees so we are eye to eye. "But I didn't. You, Nic, and Bryce saved me. You did get there in time. Do you know how lucky that makes me?" She pauses, releasing my face as I stare into my lap. "People all over the world suffer terribly. They suffer terrible loss, see their mothers raped in front of them, their brothers and sisters killed, or they live in abject poverty with nowhere to go. Or natural disasters leave them with nothing." Then, leaning forward, she whispers in my ear, "I've been through worse."

I know she's talking about her parents. The car accident. The long-term effort she had to undertake to keep her family together. The pain she had to negotiate around and stay strong every time she saw grief in her brother's or sisters' eyes.

I love her.

I reach for the stone, but she takes my hand and raises it to her lips.

"You never, ever, need to take on any guilt. Ever. I've done that. I did it for years." She looks right at me, ducking her head to make sure her eyes meet mine. "I used to think I was the reason my mom and dad were killed. I wasn't. It was the judge and alcohol and crappy weather."

Wiping my face, I reach for the pendant, noticing where I need to crimp the glass more evenly along the edge of the setting.

She lays a hand on my thigh. "I’ve had people taken away from me. But I've had someone given to me as well."

"This is us," I explain, and it's just long enough that she can see it dangling. I lay it in my palm and point to the glass heart. "This is our love, holding up and balancing our world of two."

"Like the blue planet."

"Our planet," I clarify.

"I just love it. And I love it more because you made it."

Chapter Twenty-Five

Claire

I roll over, still groggy with sleep. Mornings still seem disjunct, unorganized somehow because I have yet to figure out any sort of exercise routine. Devon's too fast for me to run with and I don't want to hold her back. And she's an evening runner.

Who can run then?

Then I feel a little tug on the sheets. Outside, the breeze is growing cooler as we shift into autumn. The sun still sparkles, but the ocean is already frigid. I know because I waded in up to my knees. That's about all I could take.

This morning, as I lie in bed half asleep, I can hear Finn in the bathroom, brushing his teeth. He's shaving. As much as I love that stubble and how sexy it makes him look, after so much kissing and hugging and rubbing, I sometimes end up with a stubble rash.

I watch him through half-closed eyes. And then I doze off just long enough to be startled when he starts pulling the sheet from across my shoulders. It slides down and all I've got on is a tank top.

I stretch. "Hey. What's going on?"

He doesn't usually get up first. As I sit up and peer out the window, I see it's just sunrise. There's a pink strip laced with dark red against the watery horizon line. I feel Finn, hear him move against the bed, and then he sits down, his weight causing my body to dip a little on the mattress.

"Don't ever get rid of this down mattress," I say. "It's always been my favorite.

"I won't, even though a third of it is probably bacteria and dirt by now."

I laugh. "I don't care. It's wonderful."