My eyes teared up at the realization. I didn’t know how to process it. It scared me, and I didn’t know what it meant or what I should do now or how it would change things. But suddenly nothing was the same.

I made my way over to the window and shook him gently. “Justin.”

He startled awake. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Come to bed.”

He stared up at me in the dark like he didn’t believe what he’d heard.

“Come to bed,” I said again. “Come on.”

He peered at me another moment. Then he got up and came to bed.

When I got under the covers, I scooted over to snuggle up next to him. He wrapped his arms around me and tucked the blanket over my shoulder like this was the most natural thing in the world to him and we’d slept like this a thousand times before. I put a palm over his heart and lay there feeling the rhythmic beating under my hand.

I wanted to tell him how much I’d missed him. That I’d stared at pictures that had only fragments of him in them, how I’d dreamed about him and how I felt when he came to the cottage.

I didn’t know why it was so hard to say what I was feeling. Maybe because it felt hard to feel what I was feeling.

“You didn’t leave,” I whispered.

“I will never leave you,” he said tiredly. “I mean, unless you tell me to. I’m not a creep.”

I laughed and my sore stomach hurt.

He pulled me closer and kissed the top of my head. And for the first time maybe ever, I felt like I belonged somewhere.

CHAPTER 33 JUSTIN

The next morning when Emma woke up and wandered out of her bedroom, I was in the kitchen.

“Hey, you’re up,” I said, over the stove. “I’m making you oatmeal,” I said, nodding at the pot. “I figured it would be easy on your stomach. Maybe some bananas?”

She sat at the little table. “Thanks.”

I let my eyes linger on her longer than they should. I liked the way she looked. Rumpled and sleepy like this was the morning after I’d stayed the night. I mean I had stayed the night, but not in the way I wanted to.

I probably never would.

It was funny how much I wished I had these small, normal things. To wake up next to her and make her breakfast. Make plans for the holidays, ask her what she needed from the store on my way home and have our shows that we wouldn’t watch without each other.

I wouldn’t get these experiences. Not with her.

It was a hard reality to accept. I’d been trying.

I looked back at the pot so she wouldn’t see the expression on my face.

“How do you feel?” I asked.

“Like a human again.”

I arched an eyebrow at her. “Not like a human who got bit by a zombie?”

She laughed a little.

“I was thinking we could watch a movie or something,” I said. “If you’re feeling up to it.”

“You don’t have to go home?”

“No. I mean, unless you want some alone time or—”

“No. I don’t,” she said quickly.

“Okay.”

She peered over at me. “You’re… you’re not mad at me?”

I looked back down at the stove. “Why would I be mad at you?”

The words Because of What Happened Between Us the Other Day hung there.

“You haven’t really been texting me,” she said.

“You haven’t really been texting me. I just figured you were feeling small after what happened with Amber and you needed your space.”

She didn’t reply.

“I missed you,” I said, talking to her but looking at the oatmeal.

I don’t know why I bothered to say it. She’d made her position on our relationship pretty clear. But for some reason I needed her to know it anyway. Maybe because her truth was hers, and mine was mine and I missed her and deserved to say it out loud.

There was a painfully long beat of silence. “I missed you too.”

I looked up at her, my heart leaping with hope. I waited for her to say more but she didn’t.

I’d realized something over the last week of almost complete radio silence. I knew now that if I didn’t have the kids, I really would have followed her to the ends of the earth. The week apart had solidified that for me. I’d hoped the distance would make it easier to let her go. But it hadn’t. It just made me miss her more. There was something so hopeless about it.

I reached for a bowl to serve her food to avoid the awkward silence. I cut up a half of a banana and sprinkled the oatmeal with brown sugar and cinnamon and slid it in front of her.

“You’re not eating?” she asked.

I put the empty pot in the sink and ran water into it. “No, I’m not hungry for some reason.”

She poked at the oatmeal. “What did you do this week?”

“Nothing. Took care of the kids. Worked.”

“How have they been?”