putting distance between them, because no matter how much
she might want to follow Coralyn upstairs, she knew she
needed to go and she wanted to do the right thing. The selfless
thing.
Giana wanted to be what Coralyn needed. Who she needed.
She didn’t want her to leave. She wanted to be someone else,
someone other than who Coralyn had accused her of being.
“We’ll talk when I’m back,” Coralyn offered, the only
apology she could. She drank in Giana’s beauty, different now,
softer, softened by pleasure and longing, and the fact that she
didn’t have her guard up.
And then she fled, naked, in search of a cold shower that
could return the world to rights and remind her that this wasn’t
real. That she couldn’t want Giana, or need her, or rely on her.
It was entirely a lie, and one she needed to fix before Giana
remembered all on her own and time ran out.
Chapter 9
Coralyn
The most amazing thing happened an hour after she’d
gotten back to the hospital. She was holding her dad’s hand,
folded into the chair beside his bed, when he opened his eyes.
He was weak, disoriented, but he blinked at her and the haze
in his vision cleared. His eyes were the same blue as her own.
They were tired. She could see that. Tired in the kind of way
that was past bone deep exhaustion, tired beyond the
glassiness of being in constant pain, beyond the haze of
medications. They were the kind of tired that meant he was
ready to leave soon.
“Dad!” Coralyn gasped. She clutched his hand, maybe a bit
too tightly, and quickly relaxed her grip. “Oh my God. You’re