Page 96 of Unbound
My chest was tight, making it hard to breathe. "But the dare—"
"Was total bullshit, right from the start. We all knew it,” Elijah said firmly. "A stupid game Phoenix suggested because they thought it would be funny. But Adrian, you think I don't know you? You think I don't know that you never would have kept pursuing someone unless you saw something real there? You’re not that much of an asshole, you would never have kept it up for any period of time. You wouldn’t force yourself on someone who didn’t want you, that’s just not you.”
"But you said I was an asshole to him."
"You were. Sometimes. Hell, you're an asshole most of the time—it's kind of your default setting." Elijah's lips quirked up. "But here's the thing: you're an asshole with a heart. You don't actually know how to be cruel, even when you're trying to be. You challenged him to think for himself for probably the first time in his life. You saw past the programming to the person underneath. You made him feel seen."
I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. "What if he never wakes up properly? What if when he does, he hates me? What if I destroyed the only good thing that ever happened to me?"
"Then you deal with it," Elijah said quietly. "But Adrian, I don't think that's going to happen."
"How can you be so sure?"
"Because I saw the way he looked at you. Even during those early days, even when he was fighting his feelings hardest—he looked at you like you were the first real thing he'd ever encountered. That doesn't just disappear."
I leaned back against the sink, feeling drained. "I don't know how to live with the guilt."
"The guilt isn't going to help Jesse heal," Elijah said quietly. "You know what will? You being there. You showing up every day, proving that you're in this for real now. That it's not a game anymore, that it never really was to you.”
"What if he never recovers? What if they broke something in him that can't be fixed?"
Elijah's expression softened. "Then you love him anyway. Broken or whole, traumatized or healed, you love him. Because that's what love is—choosing someone every day, no matter what."
"You make it sound so simple."
"It is simple. It's not easy, but it's simple." Elijah reached out and squeezed my shoulder. "Adrian, you saved me. Not because you made me trans, but because you made it safe for me to be trans. You gave me a family when my blood family failed me. You fought for me when I couldn't fight for myself."
"That's different—"
"It's exactly the same. You saw someone struggling to be themselves in a world that wanted to crush them, and you threwyourself between them and the crushing. That's what you do. That's who you are."
I thought about Jesse's face the last time he'd been conscious, the way he'd thrashed against restraints, lost in memories of torture. The way he'd looked through me like I wasn't even there.
"He doesn't even recognize me when he's awake," I said quietly.
"Give him time. The doctors said the sedation and trauma would make things confusing at first. But he'll come back to you. I know he will."
"How can you be so sure?"
"Because he chose you once, when it cost him everything. That kind of choice doesn't just vanish because of trauma. It might be buried for a while, but it's still there."
The tears were back, but different this time. Less desperate, more grateful.
"I don't deserve him."
"Maybe not," Elijah said with a small smile. "But you're going to spend the rest of your life trying to. And that's what makes you worthy of him."
I pulled him into a hug, this friend who'd saved me as much as I'd saved him. Who'd taught me what chosen family really meant.
"Thank you," I whispered.
"For what?"
"For seeing the good in me when I can't see it myself."
"That's what family does," he said simply. "We see each other clearly, even when we're lost."
We stood there for a moment, two friends who'd survived their own kinds of hell, holding each other up.
