I leaned against the wall, crossing my arms stubbornly. The jail was dingy, with flickering lights and less-than-impressive facilities. The paint was peeling, the floor was covered in scuff marks. There was a suspicious-looking reddish stain a few meters down the hall.

It also happened to be the place Vanessa was being held.

Rian glared at me from the wall opposite mine, flanked by a scowling Rokim and an unenthusiastic Lisa. I glared right back, standing firm against them all.

Rokim breached the silence first.

"Come on, Hanna," he urged, glancing at the door the police officer had disappeared through, on his way to collect Vanessa for her visitors. "This is a bad idea. We promised to keep you out of trouble."

I met his gaze with a scowl of my own. "She's being detained, Kimmy. With a bunch of cops. I couldn't get into trouble even if I tried."

"Oh, please—"

"It doesn't matter," I interrupted sharply. "I'm doing this. Either get on board, or go home."

He closed his mouth, his scowl fiercer than ever. I felt a little bad about snapping at him, but I couldn't let anyone dissuade me. I wanted to talk to her.

"She tried to kill you, Hanna," Rian murmured quietly.

I glanced at him, my expression softening. I hadn't forgotten how angry he'd been at the hospital when I'd first woken up, or the blatant worry when I'd nearly broken down. He had every right not to like this.

Still didn't mean he could stop me.

I shifted forward, taking his hand. "I'll be fine," I reassured him, giving his fingers a squeeze. "She won't be able to touch me. There's gonna be a guard right outside the door."

His brows drew together unhappily. "I just don't get why it's so important that you see her."

I paused, considering my motivations. I remembered the moment I'd set the ropes tying me down on fire. No matter how I tried, I just couldn't shake the memory of how horrified she'd looked when the flames had actually caught. It bothered me immensely. Even worse, it gave me pause, when all I wanted to do was condemn her and forget the whole thing.

Surely there was something that made her do what she did. Something more than petty jealousy. I had to know.

I did my best to give Rian a comforting smile. "I have a few things I want to ask her," I said carefully, giving his hand another squeeze. "I'll be out in no time."

I stepped away as the door to our right swung open, and a guard gestured for me to head inside. "Only one visitor at a time," he said gruffly, when he saw Rian try to step in after me.

I glanced back at all of them, swallowing against the lump in my throat. There was no reason for me to be nervous. 

"When I come back, we'll go get ice cream, yeah?" 

Rian huffed and crossed his arms, but Rokim and Lisa nodded tensely. I sent them all a winning smile and stepped inside the waiting room. The door clicked shut behind me.

This area was even dirtier than the rest of the jail, and was just meant to separate the outside area from the interior. I was facing a wall with a large window to my left, through which I could see the guard from before. Another door stood directly in front of me, locked electronically. There was an intercom and a few buttons on a panel below him, from what little I could see, but the rest extended out of my field of vision.

The guard's voice drifted through the intercom, sharp and sudden.

"Visitor to see Vanessa Hawthorne. One moment, please."

I jolted. It had never occurred to me before, but it struck me then that it was the first time I'd ever heard Vanessa's last name. The knowledge was strangely unsettling.

But I supposed it was irrelevant now. The guard nodded at me from behind the glass, pressing a button to buzz the adjoining door open.

I took a deep breath and went inside.

At the sound of my footsteps, Vanessa raised her head. I quietly sucked in a breath. 

She was seated in a metal chair, in front of a matching metal table. Both were bolted to the floor. She was also wearing a tan-coloured jumpsuit and a pair of handcuffs, which were chained to the table's centre. Judging by the circles under her eyes, she hadn't slept well in a while.

Her eyes first went to the bandages on my arm, then to the healing gouges on my neck—gouges that were courtesy of those talons she called fingernails. To my surprise, there wasn't a hint of satisfaction on her face when she examined the wounds she'd inflicted on my body. 

Wounds she inflicted while trying to kill me, I reminded myself.

"They told me it was you."

I barely managed to keep from stepping away. Her voice was rough from disuse—or maybe from overuse—but her tone was still as hard and unforgiving as always. I let out a breath. At least that seemed normal.

"Disappointed?" I asked, unable to keep the bite from my words. But she didn't so much as flinch.

"Why are you here?" she asked, her tone just as harsh as mine. 

Direct as ever.

I settled myself on the chair opposite her, strikingly aware of her dirty, chipped nail polish. It was jarring, like something out of a half-finished dream. She was usually so put together, so perfectly coiffed. Seeing her like this was like seeing another person entirely.

This girl tried to murder me.

Staring at her now, it seemed impossible. Not because she looked weak or fragile or anything like that—far from it—but because so much of what I thought I knew about her was now stripped away. The makeup, the fancy clothes, the haughty voice. In her jumpsuit and her handcuffs, it was startlingly clear that I didn't know much about Vanessa at all. Until just a few moments ago, I hadn't even known her last name.

"You gonna answer me, or just sit there like an idiot?"

I was pulled back to the present by her cutting tone of voice. I crossed my legs, choosing to ignore the jab. 

"You know, you're only being detained here until you make bail."

She scoffed, flicking her eyes away from me. "Maybe I don't wanna make bail."

I blinked. That didn't—that made no sense. "What?"

She glanced down at the table, glaring at the handcuffs on her wrists. "Spend my life in jail or spend it at home," she muttered. "Not much of a difference, if you ask me."

I furrowed my brow, the world momentarily lurching under my feet. "Wait—did you try to kill me just so you could get away from your family?"

Her eyes shot up to mine, sharp and unyielding. But not, I realized with a jolt, even remotely as hateful as they'd been in that slaughterhouse.

"No. I don't like you. At all," she deadpanned. "I still think you took everything I deserved. That class was mine until you walked in."

I nodded, feeling the world slide back into place, if only a little. "But?" I asked warily.

She was silent for a long time. Then she scoffed bitterly. "What the hell. It's not like I have anyone else to talk to." She eyed me with disdain. "That ecomp was my ticket out. I would have gotten to take a chunk of my father's money and go, free to do what I liked. Just me and my b—" 

She stopped herself, stiffening, and glared daggers into the metal table.

"You and your . . . what?"

"It's not important," she snapped, raising her head. "Just . . . I would have gotten out, okay? I would have won. And you just—you just had to walk in. And you got to win it all, not me. I lost. And I paid for it."

She abruptly jerked her chained hands to her body, using them to cover her face. As she did, the neck of her jumpsuit shifted, revealing the edge of a wide, jagged scar on her shoulder. 

I sucked in a breath at the marred, puckered skin. Her chains clinked loudly, and she removed her hands from her face with a sigh.

She spotted my stare and followed my gaze. Then she made a displeased noise in her throat and quickly adjusted her collar. There was disgust in her eyes when she turned back around, but for once, I didn't think it was aimed at me. My mind whirled.

"Wait, wait." I held up a finger. "I won the ecomp . . . and so you tried to kill me? That's the whole reason?" I asked, my voice a little disbelieving. "That's crazy!"

She eyed me, chuckling bitterly into her hands. "I never said I was sane."

I stared at her. I just couldn't understand how someone with so much potential, so much talent, could ever sink as low as she had.

She wanted to kill me.

I clenched my fists and ground my teeth together. I tried to remind myself of that fact, to force myself to recognize her for what she was. She was a murderer. Or she would've been, if I hadn't gotten away. She was insane and she was a criminal and and she tried to hurt me and she had never been my friend.

And yet.

I closed my eyes in resignation, just for a moment, before opening them again. I knew what I was going to do. But man, Rian was gonna kill me.

"I'm not going to press charges, Vanessa."

My quiet statement seemed to reverberate off the threadbare walls. Vanessa went still. I could practically hear my friends screaming at me for my stupidity from the other room.

Her eyes flicked to mine, shock evident in every crease of her face. I watched her expressions shift across her features, much like that day: confusion, disbelief, anger. So much anger. 

But no hatred. I nearly laughed.

"What?" she said finally, thunderstruck. "You—you can't do that."

I steepled my fingers. "Yeah, I can."

She blinked, her eyes narrowing. "I tried to kill you. Are you crazy?"

Now I did laugh, and harshly, too. "Maybe. But you didn't kill me. And I'm not pressing charges."

"They won't let you do that. This isn't, like, someone jumping you in a park at night." She shook her head. "This is attempted murder in the first degree. You can't just 'not press charges' and expect it all to just disappear."

I cocked my head pensively. "I'm the only witness. Your family's the head of a huge conglomerate. No prosecutor's gonna want a case like that. If I say nothing happened, there's no way they keep you here."

She fisted her hands, her mouth pressed into a thin line. Her eyes were wary. "Why are you doing this?" she asked. "I've been nothing but horrible to you."

I pursed my lips, drumming my fingers against the table. "I'm not totally sure," I said drily. "Maybe it's because I believe, at some point in your life, you weren't always this person. And maybe you can become that person again, or whatever. Something nice and spiritual like that."

She narrowed her eyes. "I could try and kill you again."

I raised a brow. "You could try," I agreed. I stopped drumming my fingers and knotted them instead. "But I don't think you're gonna do that. Call me crazy."

She stared at me a second longer, utterly incredulous. Then she dropped her gaze, staring at her hands. "Crazy," she murmured, but the fight had gone out of her.

I leaned back in my seat, thinking back to her earlier statement, about running off with a chunk of her father's money and something else. Or maybe someone else. 

"So yeah, there's that," I acknowledged, "but I also get the feeling there's someone you're protecting. Someone who would be a lot worse off if I left you to rot in here."

Her shoulders tensed, but no other part of her moved. I took her silence as a sign I was right.

I stood, brushing my hands together. I hesitated, glancing back up at her. "For what it's worth, I didn't want to steal anything from you. Not the ecomp, or the class, or anything." I paused, sliding my hands into my pockets. "I would have gladly switched places with you if you'd only asked."

She barked out a laugh, still staring at the table. Its metal sheen reflected onto her face, casting her eyes into shadow. "'Asking' isn't really the way we do things, in the Hawthorne family."

I nodded, slowly. Acceptingly. Then I backed towards the door, knocking on it twice. As the guard buzzed it open, I turned to her one last time.

"I hope you find happiness, Vanessa."

Then I walked away, feeling her burning gaze follow me the whole way out.

♛

Two hours later, after giving my official statement to the police, Vanessa was gone and I was back at Rian's place, sitting on his couch, ice cream in hand. 

Rokim and Lisa had gone off to do whatever they did after getting their frozen treats, leaving me alone with my—I still wasn't quite used to saying it—my boyfriend.

My very, very pissed off boyfriend. Needless to say, he wasn't exactly happy with my decision to let Vanessa off the hook. It had taken a bit of convincing, but he'd finally relented and grudgingly accepted my judgement.

"So, what?" Rian asked, more curious than angry now. "You forgive her? Just like that?"

"No, I don't forgive her," I said carefully, swirling my spoon in my ice cream. "But . . . I think I might understand her."

He huffed, setting his ice cream aside. "Well, I don't forgive her or understand her," he grumbled. There was a pause before he spoke again. "But still—wow. You're amazing," he said, eyeing me appreciatively. "If I'm Edward Cullen, then you must be Mother Teresa or something."

I wrinkled my nose, wagging my ice cream spoon at him. "Rian, that's gross."

He smirked, plucking my ice cream out of my hands and taking a bite. "What? I still think you're pretty hot. You know, for a saint."

"Give me back my ice cream, you—you heathen!" I exclaimed, stretching my arms to reach for it. He kept it dancing just out of my reach, laughing when I began to climb onto his lap for better leverage.

"Oh, I'm a heathen, am I?" he teased, finally letting me snatch the cup from his grip. I grinned in triumph, until I brought it back down and realized we were nose-to-nose, with me straddling his legs and his hands at my sides.

I swallowed.

His palms came up to frame my face. My eyelashes fluttered when his thumb brushed over my mouth, swiping at my bottom lip. Then he brought his thumb to his own mouth and licked it.

"You had a bit of ice cream on you," he explained matter-of-factly, but the look in his eye was far less innocent. "Thought I'd clean you up."

I began to blush, but then a thought occurred to me.

"Oh! That reminds me," I said, digging around in my pockets. Rian blinked in surprise. After a moment, I dragged a slightly creased handkerchief out of my sweater, brandishing it triumphantly. "I've had this forever. I kept meaning to give it back to you, but—well. Things got in the way."

He cocked his head, examining the scrap of cloth in my hand. "And what is that, exactly?"

"It's your handkerchief!" I flattened it against his chest, trying to smooth out the creases. "Remember, the Evaluators' Ball? You lent it to Isaac when he cut his finger?"

"Oh," he said, frowning. "I remember. I figured he'd just keep it."

I rolled my eyes. "As if. Isaac's way too sweet to borrow something and not give it back. He asked me to return it to you way back when we got drunk and played—" I tapered off, my face reddening slightly. "Never Have I Ever."

Rian smirked, his eyes drifting to the spot where my neck met my shoulder. His finger traced the area pensively, and it was all I could do not to shudder under the touch.

"The mark's gone now," he said ruefully, but his eyes were alight with mischief. "Maybe I should make another?"

I pressed my lips together, trying to keep from blurting how much I would actually like for him to do just that. Instead, I reached around and grabbed the hand at my neck, moving it so it hung in the air in front of me.

"What are you doing?" Rian asked amusedly.

I stuck my tongue out in concentration, carefully wrapping the handkerchief around Rian's wrist. I tied it in a delicate knot, sitting back and admiring my work.

"There," I said, satisfied. "Perfect."

I glanced back at up at Rian and froze. The look on his face was nothing short of pure amazement. 

I tucked my hair behind my ears, acutely embarrassed. "What?"

"Nothing," he said, blinking. His tone was utterly serious. "It's just . . . you're ridiculously adorable. Are you trying to kill me?"

I flushed from head to toe. I ducked my head and covered my flaming face with my hands, my composure gone. 

"Oh my god, Rian," I mumbled. "You can't say crap like that."

His voice was teasing when he replied. "Why not?"

"Because. It's so—mushy."

He laughed richly, his hands climbing from my waist to my arms, pulling them away from my eyes. "Well, maybe I like being mushy," he said. "God knows neither of us had the opportunity before."

I huffed, wrapping my arms around his neck. "In that case, fine," I dared him. "Do your worst."

Rian raised his brows and smirked. He was silent for a moment, pondering, before his eyes lit up. "Do you remember the time you broke into my apartment?"

I opened my mouth, but he held up a hand. "The first time," he corrected drily. 

I grinned impishly. "Yeah. What about it?"

He leaned forward, a mischievous smile on his lips. "You told me to look up the term 'hanker sore.'"

I froze. I'd forgotten about that.

His grin only widened when he spotted my embarrassment. I tried to pull away, but he didn't let me, holding me fast. I groaned, resigning myself to the humiliation.

"Hanker sore," he recited, his voice lowered to a smug murmur. "Adjective." He paused to flick his eyes to my reddened cheeks, smirking yet again. "Finding a person so attractive it actually kinda pisses you off."

I huffed, trying to pull away again, with no more success than the last time. "So what?" I finally muttered. "You do piss me off."

He laughed again, moving his hands to my face. The touch was so gentle that I glanced up in surprise, only to find him staring at me with a nearly unbearable fondness in his gaze. I caught my breath.

He ran the pads of his thumbs across my cheekbones, almost reverently. "Well, Hanna dearest, I have a definition for you too," he said, his voice uncharacteristically soft.

I swallowed, unable to look away, as he opened his mouth again.

"Swish fulfilment," he began, a crooked smile spreading over his lips. 

"Noun." His eyes sparkled with mischief and something else. I realized it was the same something else I'd been seeing in his eyes for quite a long time, only now I thought I had a name for it.

Rian moved closer as he finished, his warm breath fanning over my cheek as he spoke. 

"The feeling of delicate luck after tossing something across the room and hitting your target so crisply, so perfectly, that you feel no desire to even attempt another shot." He hesitated, looking straight at me with those eyes again, and forged onward. "Which is a more compelling argument for the concept of monogamous love than anything sung with a guitar."

It was a moment before I caught his meaning. When I finally did, my face promptly went from red to blazing.

"You—you're right," I blurted, completely out of my depth. "That was mushy."

He smiled amusedly at my reaction, brushing his thumbs against my cheeks again like I was the whole world, glorious and beautiful and so goddamn essential to his existence that it hurt him sometimes.

I paused, wondering where I was getting the words. Goosebumps rose on my flesh when I realized I was describing the way felt about him, not the other way around.

This time, when I tried to pull away, he didn't stop me. He let me scramble off his lap and off the couch and eventually into his bedroom, where I slammed the door shut in a panic.

I pressed my hands against my face, my heart pounding. My blood pulsed, my muscles tightened, every one of my nerves sang with the same terrifying, undeniable truth.

I was . . . I was in . . . 

Jesus fucking christ.

A knock on the door distracted me. "Hanna?" Rian asked, and I could hear his amusement clear as a bell. 

Something achingly warm spread through my chest at the sound of his voice. I withdrew my hands from my face, a sprig of determination popping up beneath my inner turmoil.

I glanced at the bed, then back at the door. A wicked smile spread over my lips.

I stepped forward and swung open the door, to Rian's obvious surprise. He rubbed the back of his head, opening his mouth to say something along the lines of an apology. I interrupted him.

With my mouth.

It took only a moment for him to respond, and in a few more he was pushing me against the wall, his hands running all over my body ravenously. I momentarily broke away, looping my arms around his neck, and he took the opportunity to effortlessly hitch my legs up around his waist. He examined me perplexedly, though with an undeniable lust.

"So . . . mushy is good?" he asked.

I smirked at him. "Very good," I affirmed, dragging his lips back to mine. My hands dug into his hair and his teeth nipped at my lips and it was only a few moments before he lifted me inside his bedroom, kicking the door shut behind us.

♛

After.

How to explain what came after? Should I describe how skin slid against skin, how nerves tingled and sweat beaded and how my voice went hoarse? Or maybe I should try to articulate the feeling of ecstasy that coursed through every part, every inch, every micrometer of my body. 

How the sounds of Rian's groans and my gasps and our names on each other's lips wove into a symphony more powerful than any I'd ever heard, even those sung with a guitar. 

How I forgot how to breathe under the press of our bodies; forgot what it was like not to have helplessly curled toes and desperate fingers digging into bedsheets; forgot that the stars lived in the sky and not the beautiful, obsidian eyes above me, below me, all around me. Eyes that both pinned me down and set me freer than anything I'd ever known.

After: another word for happiness.

I lay on my side, my right arm splayed across Rian's chest. We were both propped up against his headboard, and he was staring at me with that look in his eye again.

"What?" I teased.

"Nothing," he said, shaking his head. A smile pulled at his lips. "Your eyes are pretty."

I laughed, scooting up so I could look at him more directly. "Thanks, but have you looked in the mirror lately?" I asked, my tone wry.

He raised his brows. I gestured in his general direction, raising a brow of my own. "You have the prettiest eyes I've ever seen," I admitted. "They're black, but they're, like, sparkly in the light." I felt a blush coming on at my inability to explain. "Or something like that."

But Rian didn't seem to notice my embarrassment. Instead, he looked like he was trying to fight back a smile. "Are you serious?" he asked.

I blinked. "Uh, yeah. Why?"

He let a small chuckle slip out, grabbing his phone from somewhere off the floor. "Hanna," he said, still trying and failing to keep the amusement from his voice. "You do know that eyes can't be . . . you know. The colour black. Right?"

I stared at him, not understanding. "Huh?"

He laughed in earnest, thumbing at his phone. "It's biologically impossible to have black-coloured irises, Hanna," he explained, shaking his head again. "I can't believe this. An entire lifetime together and you don't know what colour my eyes are?"

I reared away from him, feeling the world as I knew it crumble. "Wait, what?" I exclaimed, gaping at him. "You can't be serious. You can't be—" Upon seeing his face, I groaned and buried my own in my hands. "Oh my god."

I could hear him smothering his laughter, and I glanced up to glare at him. When our gazes met, he beckoned me closer. Reluctantly, I scooted back to his side.

"Here, look," he urged, as he flicked on his phone's flashlight. He shone the beam into his eye. I took in a breath.

His irises were volcanic, filled with craters and flecks of dark and light. I marvelled at the tiny, minute details. They were more than pretty. They were amazing.

But they weren't black.

"See?" Rian said, blinking as he shut the light off again. "They're just grey. Pretty dark grey, sure, but still grey."

I groaned and slumped into his side, my face burning. "That's so embarrassing," I muttered. "I thought for sure . . ."

He laughed and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. "Could you be any more adorable?" he mused, laughing again. 

His thumb stroked my skin, leaving sensitized trails that I was all too aware of and he seemed all too intent on making. Perhaps it was this—his wandering touch—that distracted us both, just enough for one little, earth-shattering statement to slip from his unguarded lips.

"God, I love you."

We both froze.

His hand on my skin stopped moving, my chest stopped rising, our eyes stopped blinking. The air seemed to crackle with tension as the words hung in front of us, unfamiliar and waiting to be acknowledged.

I felt him about to pull away. He hadn't yet moved, but I knew it as certainly as I knew that blood raced beneath my skin, that my heart pounded in my chest, that I lived and I breathed. He was about to pull away and apologize and make excuses for something we both felt.

Something we both felt.

So without wasting another second, I wrapped my arms around his waist. He seemed to go even stiffer, the arm on my shoulder noticeably tense. I pressed my face against his chest and smiled into his skin.

"I love you too, you idiot."

A pause. Then he let out a rush of breath, tightened his arm around my shoulder, and leaned down to kiss me. 

And kiss me.

And kiss me.

When he finally pulled away, I was a little dazed, a little breathless, and somehow a lot happier than before. I guess those were the perks of having a boyfriend with the mouth of a greek god and a tongue that should be illegal.

I paused, for about the millionth time, when the word crossed my mind: boyfriend.

The word 'boyfriend' wasn't enough. It was too small, too narrow. It couldn't encompass all the things he was to me, all the ways he kept my world from crashing down around my ears. He was a pillar of strength and grace and support and love and a million other things I couldn't hope to articulate, all packed into that one word: boyfriend.

Maybe partner was better. Or best friend. Or soulmate. I didn't know. All I knew was that he was mine, now and forever.

Yeesh. When did I get so mushy?

"What are you thinking about?"

I glanced up into Rian's black-grey-undefinable eyes, and I smiled. "Oh, nothing." My smile turned devilish as I traced a finger over one of his tattoos.

I loved those tattoos. I loved everything about him. The thought made me giddy.

But I didn't say that. All I said was, "Ready for round two?"

Rian smirked at me, running deft fingers over my bare hip with one hand and twirling a strand of my hair with the other. "Please, Hanna. We passed round two ages ago."

I laughed, unable to keep the glowing grin off my face. Unable to keep the sheer devotion out of my eyes. Unable to hide my adoration. Or my delight. Or the aching, earthshaking, undeniable love that radiated from my every pore.

"Just shut up and kiss me, Haltie."

His smirk softened into a smile. "Anything for the belle of the—"

Our mouths met before he could finish, and as always, it took my breath away. He kissed me like I was it for him, like I was his first thought in the morning and his last one at night, like I starred in his dreams and chased away his nightmares, like I was the teasing wind of spring and the hot euphoria of summer and the vivid colour of autumn and the first snow of winter. He kissed me the way I kissed him, like I was his everything. Like the world began and ended with this moment. Like he never wanted to stop.

And you know what? Neither did I.

THE END