“She’s not—” Reid begins, but I cut him off. Reid may have punched a guy in the face (better than pistols at dawn, I am now assured) before I could get clocked by an errant fist, but I’m ending this night as rescuer-in-chief. I got him to this urgent care, and I’m going to be the one who wakes him up every hour to shine a light in his eyeballs, though that is probably not what this doctor means about checking for light sensitivity.

“I will,” I say. “He’s staying at my place.”

In my periphery, I see Reid turn his head sharply toward me.

“Great,” says the doctor, snapping the cover closed on her tablet. “You all have a good night, and try to stay out of trouble.” The door shuts behind her with a decisive click.

And then Reid and I are alone—truly alone—for the first time in a week.

“Meg, you don’t have to—”

This time, it’s me who turns sharply, and I finally let myself take in the full force of his bruised face. My heart clutches, but I don’t wince. Somehow I know—as though I’ve been practicing for a lot longer with Reid than I realized—that if I show pity toward him right now, he’ll fight me so much harder.

“You’re staying with me. You don’t even have your phone.”

“I have my MetroCard. And my feet.”

“You’re about to get stitches.” I cross my arms over my chest, and I register how strange it feels to do it. I don’t think I’ve ever stood this way in my whole life. It’s weirdly satisfying. “Where did you learn to punch like that, anyway?”

I don’t ask so much because I care, but because I’m trying to distract him from arguing with me about staying over tonight.

He blinks down at his hand. “My older brothers. To help me at school.” He pauses, then looks up at me with an expression of such naked embarrassment that I immediately uncross my arms.

“Please don’t think I do that often,” he says.

“I don’t,” I say quickly, feeling some of the fight drain out of me. “Of course I don’t.”

“Or . . . drink that way. It’s rare. And I hadn’t eaten all day. I only had—”

“Reid, it’s fine.”

Oh, man, the sad eyes. Forget it, I’ll never win this argument. Maybe I can pay one of these nurses to go home with him, if the thought of staying with me is so awful.

“You—” He shifts on the bench, the paper covering the vinyl crinkling beneath him. “You’ve barely looked at me since we got out of there. If I scared you, or if the things I said—”