Page 81 of Ghoul Me, Maybe
“That’s not a reason to take on theentire bar.”
I looked up. “It is to me.”
She ran a hand through her hair. “You’ve been human for what—three weeks? You’re gonna get yourself killed before we even get a mortgage.”
I winced. “You want a mortgage?”
“I want to not be banned from every bar in a ten-mile radius.”
I laughed. Winced again.
“You’re not invincible anymore, Elias. I can’t lose you again.”
The weight of her words landed heavy.
She didn’t say it lightly.
She meant it.
I reached for her hand, bloody and bruised as mine was.
“I’m still figuring this out,” I said. “The pain. The fear. Time. Hunger. It all hits different now.”
She squeezed my fingers. “Then figure it out with me. Don’t go full beast-mode every time someone’s a jackass.”
I nodded. Swallowed the pain. Both kinds.
“I’ll try.”
She leaned her head against my shoulder.
We sat like that until the moon rose above the bar roof, casting long shadows and soft silver light.
I never thought mortality would be the hardest part of life.
Turns out, being human isn’t about surviving the wreck.
It’s about survivingafter.
And that’s where the real trial begins.
We’re on the porch later that night. The stars are dim—hiding, maybe—but the wind’s soft, carrying the smell of salt and smoke from someone’s chimney down the road.
Sienna’s curled beside me on the old swing, legs pulled up, a blanket around her shoulders. She hasn’t said much since the fight. She doesn’t need to. She’s always been better at silence than me.
“I scared you,” I say eventually.
She doesn’t deny it.
But she doesn’t pull away either.
“No,” she says. “You scaredyourself.”
I nod. Let that truth settle.
Then she shifts, presses her forehead to my shoulder.
“When I was a kid,” she murmurs, “I used to think love was some kind of spell. Like, once it happened, that was it. You were done. Marked. Unbreakable.”
