Page 82 of The Way We Fell

More tears flow, and then she presses her sweet lips to mine, licking at the seam of my mouth until I grant her access. Then, she’s pressing inside, sweeping insistently past my teeth until her tongue reaches mine and slides against it. A quiet whimper escapes her and I swallow it into the kiss, tangling one hand in her hair and holding her face to mine.

Because like the day needs night, and light needs dark—I need Katy. Her warmth. Her heart. Her balance. Her soft love, her fierce love, her tough love. Somewhere along the way, I stopped functioning as Jay, and began to exist as one half of a greater whole.

Katy Keller is worth every single risk I’ve ever taken. And for her, I’d take them all again.

Chapter forty-three

Katy

Howmuchtimedoesgive her timemean? It’s been three days since I fought with Ruth, and I’m at Amie’s house again. There are fewer tears this time, and no Paloma, but there is Cam. He flew in from Boston late last night, and is now sat on the floor, legs outstretched with Maisy knelt between them, colouring a picture on the tiny plastic table pushed up against a wall.

“She’ll come around, Katy-cat.” Cam smooths a hand over his daughter’s curls as she pokes out her tongue in concentration, focusing hard on keeping the colour from her crayons inside the lines. The dinosaur picture is ‘for Gramma,’ she tells us, ‘for her new fridge.’

“You clearly don’t know Ruth,” I sigh, kicking my feet up and tucking them beneath me. Cam looks at me sympathetically as Amie slips through the door, three steaming mugs of coffee in her hands. She hip-checks the door to push it closed.

“Did you guys start moping without me?”

“I’ve already been moping,” I say glumly. “I started ages ago.”

Amie sets the mugs on her coffee table and then plops down on the sofa beside me, wrapping me in a side-hug with her fingertips pressing into my shoulder.

“She needs time, K.” Amie presses a kiss to my head. “And maybe a few shots of tequila. But give her time. You know what she’s like. She’s volatile. She’ll be mad, probably a bit icked out at the thought of her brother fu”—she glances at Maisy—“uh,withone of her best friends, and then she’ll get over it.”

“I hope so.”

“Iknowso. Roo loves you. She can’t go more than a day or two without her Katy fix.”

“I just feel like I’ve messed everything up. We’ve never been this quiet. There’s always messages in our group chat. I haven’t even heard from Lo for days.”

“Lo is in the editing cave, honey,” Amie reminds me. “She shot that wedding last weekend. She probably won’t surface for another few days.”

“Oh, yeah…” I vaguely recall hearing about the wedding Paloma agreed to photograph. She turns every image to gold, so I know the photos will turn out beautiful. But weddings aren’t her favourite, and they’re something she usually tries to avoid. This one was a favour for a friend of a friend of a friend whose photographer cancelled at the eleventh hour, and she agreed to it whilst grumbling good-naturedly in the entire week leading up to it.

“She’s fine, K,” Amie repeats. “Lo is okay. Roo is okay. She’s mad, but she’s okay.”

“You’ve spoken to her?” My eyes widen and I look at Amie pleadingly. A little pathetically, probably. I’m desperate to hear from Ruth. Since the day Amie and I met her, she’s been my best friend. She moved herself into my heart that day. The dayAmie-and-KatybecameAmie-Katy-and-Roo. Not talking to her is breaking my heart beyond anything I ever imagined. I’m plagued by a constant emptiness, a heavy dread in the pit of my stomach that grows with each day she doesn’t text or call me.

“I texted her. We’ve been talking,” Amie says carefully. Her hazel eyes scan my face, searching for a reaction. “She… is hurt.”

A whisperedfuckescapes from behind the fist I press to my mouth. Cam glances between Amie and Maisy, and Amie shakes her head as their conversation takes place wordlessly. Maisy doesn’t even seem to have heard it, still concentrating hard on the pink and orange dinosaur on the page in front of her.

“Don’t do that, Katy,” Amie slides closer. “Ruth is hurt, but she’s a big girl and she’ll build herself a cutesy little bridge and get the eff over it.” She glances at her daughter. One corner of Cam’s mouth twitches.

“I just—”

“No,” Amie insists. “You justnothing. You just keep loving your big hunk of man-meat, and Ruth will deal with it. You told her everything, right? That it’s not just a quick and dirty hook-up?”

Amie uses a hooked finger to tilt my chin up, meeting my eyes with her hazel gaze. I blink quickly, like I’m afraid of what she’ll see if I let her look for too long.

“I told her I’m in love with him.”

“Then Ruth will get over it.”

I lean into Amie, tipping my head to rest against hers as her arms lift to envelope me.

“I love you, A,” I whisper against the side of her head. “I’m sorry I’m such a fuck-up.”

“Katy,” she all but growls. “You arenot.And I love you too, Katy-cat. I love that you’re in love. I can’t wait to celebrate you and Jay soon.”

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