Frankie frowned. “Liability?”

“She’s upset,” I said. “She always blames herself.”

“No, it’s true. It’s my fault. I was the one who—”

I put my arms around Ellis and yanked her to my chest. I had to shut her up.

“It’s okay.” Over her head I gave Frankie an apologetic smile. Look rational. Look calm. “We’ll get a restraining order or something. He won’t bother you again, Elle. I promise.”

She trembled in my arms.

“It’s okay. It’s okay, baby.” My right hand was hidden from view and I traced her ribs, the curve beneath her breast, gentle. Her breath caught. My voice lowered. “Let me take you home.”

The light was failing, a rusty stain seeping through the trees, like cooling blood. A thousand leaves whispered little lies underfoot. I let her walk ahead so I could see what she reacted to. What she noticed. When she froze in the tree house doorway, I stepped behind her and threaded my arms through hers. Stronger now, sinewy from rowing. I pushed her past the beam of bloody sun that cut across the living room and into the shadows and stopped, holding her against me. My hands cupped the thin cage of her ribs, felt her heart flitting madly at the bars. My own pulse beat hot and tight in my belly.

The last few times we’d been this close, we’d been hurting each other. But not now.

“Vada,” she whispered.

Control yourself.

I released her, crossed the room. Faked a stumble and knocked the log pyramid off the table, hiding the misplaced one. “Shit. Sorry.”

“I’ve got it.” Elle nudged me aside. “Light a candle? Matches by the stove.”

I pulled a candle from a cupboard and lit it. When I brought the shivering yellow light over, Ellis looked up at me strangely.

Had she told me where the candles were? Fuck.

“Need some help?” I said.

“Someone was here.”

“No one was here. We’re in the middle of nowhere.”

“Max found me in the middle of nowhere.”

I set the candle on the table and touched her shoulders. “You can’t talk to anyone about that night. Especially not him. Let me do the talking, okay? We have to stick to the story.”

“The story,” she echoed. “The story we’re telling each other.”

I let go and tumbled onto the couch. An oak branch snaked to one side of the table, and the flame flickering against it made long, clawing shadows on the wall, the scratching of a black nail. “Are you punishing yourself, Elle? Is that what this asceticism is about?”

“No.”

“Then why are you living in the woods?”

“I wanted to be near you.”

I winced, and looked up at her, and couldn’t bear it anymore. “Come here.”

She threw herself into my outstretched arms and I hugged her fiercely. Our first real hug since I was in the hospital, so tight I felt the tendons in my arm pull like barbed wire. But I didn’t relent. I’d dreamed of this. This was exactly how it felt in my dreams: so sweet it hurt.

After a while I realized she’d gone still and I’d pressed my face into her hair and was just breathing her scent, that autumn spice, leaves turning, grass crackling. Her heart drummed fast against mine. I disentangled myself, sprawled on the opposite side of the couch. She drew her knees up tidily.

“Are we okay?” she said.

“I don’t know. But this is better than hating you.”

“Did you really hate me?”

I gazed at her across the couch. “Hate is when you love someone but wish you didn’t.”

Candlelight danced in her lenses. She faced me unflinching. Elle had a hard time looking people in the eye, but not me.

“Max won’t bother you again,” I said. “I promise.”

“How can you promise that?”

“I just can.”

They were paying too much attention to us. I was designated drink-watcher that night, and I spotted the creepers right away: two clean-cut frat boys in Ralph Lauren who ignored a club full of sorority girls to beeline straight for us—my nerdy bestie, our tatted-up Aussie friend, Blythe, and me in paint-splotched work clothes. Not your typical bro bait.

These guys were up to no good.

Blythe was already hammered. “So which one of you blokes is the bottom?” she said, and Ellis, polite as always, tried to apologize till Blythe kissed her in front of everyone, open-mouthed. We were all shocked. I looked away, feeling weird. Like something clutched at me from the inside, claw-nailed. Something you might call jealousy. Ralph #1 caught my eye.

He smiled, but it was a shark’s smile.

I put Blythe in a cab, and told off Ralph #2 when he tried to climb in with her. Sleazebag. When I walked back into the club, Ralph #1 was pulling the oldest trick in the book on Ellis.

He dropped his wallet to the floor, credit cards sliding out. As she bent to retrieve it, he tapped a packet of powder into her drink.

“We should get going, too,” I said. “Mind walking us to the train?”

I flirted the whole way. He boarded with us. When we left the station I insisted that we switch cars, sending Elle across first. The frat boy followed, and I yanked him back onto the coupling between cars. He teetered off balance. I levered him over the edge by his collar. Wind screamed and streetlights smeared past in neon ribbons.

“Look down.” I pushed his head forward. “See this? If you ever lay a finger on her, this is how I will kill you.”

(—Bergen, Vada. The Things We Do for Love. Colored pencil on paper.)

“I’ve never let anyone hurt you, Elle.”

“That’s true. You’re the only one who hurts me.”

Something sharp pricked my gut. “I should go. Don’t talk to anyone else about the accident. Come to me first.”

“Why don’t you tell Max the truth?”

“I did.”

“Then why don’t you tell me the truth?”

I got up and stalked toward the door. Elle darted after me, and when I knocked her away she made another grab, rougher, and we stumbled against the wall.

“What are you doing?” I hissed, pinning her to the planks. “We’ve been through this before. It doesn’t end well.”

“It doesn’t end, ever.” She trailed her fingers over my throat, my wild pulse. “I know you still feel this.”

“Of course I feel it. I’m not totally dead.” I shoved her hand off. “But it fucking hurts. And I’m tired of pain.”

“Then stop fighting.”

“Fighting what?”

“Us.”

Ellis grasped my face and kissed me.

My mouth hung open against hers, gasping. Shock. Every nerve lit and overloaded and popped and for an instant it was like the moment of impact, glass floating all around me, a shrapnel cloud of shattered light. Then my hands shifted to her jaw and I kissed her back, hard. She tasted like cigarette vapor, cool and herbal. It used to drive me so crazy. It still did. My thumbs bracketed her mouth and I pulled her lips open, took the top in mine. Ran my tongue inside, roughly. I tasted spearmint and sage and her, just her, a clear sweetness like a mountain stream. I pressed my body to hers to the wall. Slim bones, the thrash of blood and breath beneath translucent skin. Her want all tangled up in rage and fear. My hand slid under her shirt, found the tattoo on her left ribs. The one that matched mine.

If you’re going to get one, I’d told her, get one that’ll mean something when you’re older.

Get it for someone you’ll love forever.

She kept kissing me and I couldn’t stop. My body rebelled. I wanted this so much, even knowing where it would lead. Knowing I’d wake in her bed, a lace of bare limbs and soft skin, hair knotted, hearts heavy. Knowing she’d bury her face in her hands while I dressed and left.

I jerked away, breathless.

“Don’t stop,” she said.

“I can’t do this.”

“Why?”

I started to speak but I really just wanted to kiss her again, softer. We drifted from the wall to the couch and I leaned on the armrest and brushed my lips over hers. An open kiss, breathing into each other’s mouths. Slower, lighter. Eventually so slow and light it stopped being a kiss at all, and I looked up into her face.