Kissing him is water after a drought, deer meat in my belly after days of refusing to eat. He freezes under my lips for just a second, the way he had before, then he gives in, his hands greedily reaching for me and tangling in my hair. I wonder if I still feel the same to him without the braid there, the braid he learned to tie back up so no one knew we had been together.

He stops. He pulls back. His gaze zeros in on my parted lips.

Without asking, I open my mouth all the way so he can see the fang. The pale, receding gums. The cruel curl to my lip that comes so easily these days.

“You’re turning,” he whispers. Of course he’s disgusted by this. Why wouldn’t he be? I’m coughing up rot, my skin is turning ashen, my nails are one forgotten trim from turning into claws. I’ve told him about the martyrs. He knows what Seraph will do.

Instead of telling me how gross I am, he says, “I kept the ring.”

As quickly as I was against him, I’m pulling away. Night air rushes in between us, freezing the parts of my arms and chest that were warm so close to him. His face falls.

“Theo,” I warn, “I don’t think now’s a good time.”

“No, no, I get it.” He swallows hard. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” It’s too soon. I dig my nail into where the ring used to be. I took it off before Dad and I left. I put it in a little box and left it by his dorm. Which means I wore the ring in the hours between him throwing me against the wall and Dad finally telling me it was time to go. I can’t believe that was the same day. I can’t believe it’s only been a few weeks. It feels like months. It feels like forever. “Please, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“No, I understand. I understand.” He catches my face and makes me look at him. “Hey. We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

That’s exactly what he said when I broke down crying when we were so much younger, when we had just fallen so hard for each other, when I was terrified of being a boy. He wouldn’t pull that phrase out if he didn’t mean it.

He says, “I just want to be with you again.”

I hate myself for how much I’ve wanted to hear those words.