Her lips were parted, swollen from mine. Her blue eyes were glassy, wide, searching—like she wasn’t sure if I was about to kiss her again or walk away entirely. I wasn’t sure either.

A shaky breath left her. “Blake…”

A few words formed in my head.

And then—nothing.

Just her. Just Beverly.

Just the weight of her in my hands, the taste of her name on my tongue, the scent of her hair in my lungs. Just the way she fit against me like she was carved from my ribs, like she was made to be pressed into me like this, breathless and wanting.

I almost laughed.

I almost cried.

Because I felt her everywhere.

In the spaces between my ribs.

In my bones, in my blood, in my lungs, in the marrow of me.

In the places I thought were mine alone.

I buried my face in the crook of her neck, my grip tightening like I was trying to keep this moment from slipping through my fingers, like I was trying to keep myself from falling apart.

I’m pretty sure I love you, B. The words burned at the back of my throat, a confession I wasn’t ready for, a truth too heavy to speak. So I swallowed it down like poison.

Because if I said it, it would be real, and real can slip away—crumble in the face of time, distance, and the things we can’t control. It can fade like a memory, slipping through your grasp before you can hold onto it.

Instead, I let my lips brush against her jaw, let myself feel her heartbeat against mine. I kissed her like I was losing her. Like I had already lost her a thousand times before in a thousand different ways. Like I would spend the rest of my life trying to get her back.

“Blake,” she whispered again, my name trembling on her lips.

I swallowed, my chest tightening like it was caving in.

I felt like I was being ripped apart.

“I feel you—” I chocked out, my voice raw, cracking under the weight of her. “I feel you everywhere.”

Beverly went still.

I pressed her palm over my chest, over the place where it ached, where she had lived for years without even realizing it.

“In my ribs,” I managed, barely breathing. “In my blood. It… It hurts so bad, B.”

My throat burned, my body trembling from the effort of holding myself together, of keeping all the pieces of me from splintering at her feet.

“I don’t know how to want anything else,” I admitted, my voice breaking like glass.

She exhaled shakily, tilting her head so our noses brushed. “Then don’t.”

Her eyes were glazed over, lips swollen, chest rising and falling as if she had just run miles.