I couldn’t be sure, but as I found the edge of consciousness, his voice reached me, gentle and warm and everything I so badly needed to hear.
“I love you, too.”
CHAPTER 18
THE OFFER
For the next week, Henry stayed by my side. Whatever was in the sweet tonic Walter kept pouring down my throat worked, and I spent most of the time asleep. Eventually the nightmares faded, but I still woke up gasping, unable to forget what the freezing water of the river felt like as it closed in around me.
The pain of my mother’s death didn’t dull, but I slowly managed to accept that it would be there for a long time, and wallowing in misery when I was supposed to be healing would only hurt Henry. It would be an insult to the gift she’d given me to ignore what she wanted for me, and the past six months had prepared me for this. They’d given me the chance to say goodbye in a way I would have never been able to do without Henry. Even though it hurt just as much, there was a kind of peace inside of me that wouldn’t have otherwise been there. I held on to the hope that if the council decided to accept me despite what had happened between me and Henry, that I would one day be able to visit her, to talk to her and walk with her again. Death wasn’t the end; Ava was proof of that. But I still mourned her. I still missed her.
I had a steady stream of visitors. At first it was Henry and Walter, but after I insisted, Ava was allowed into my room as well. The moment she saw me, she flew to the side of my bed, her eyes red and puffy.
“Kate! Oh, God, you’re all right—they said you were okay, but I was afraid they were just saying that ’cause you know how people can be, but you’re really here and awake and oh, my God.”
She wrapped her arms around me so loosely that I could barely tell they were there, but I didn’t care if it hurt a little. I hugged her as tightly as I could and then spent the next thirty seconds paying for it. Pain shot through me, reaching all the way to the tips of my fingers and toes, but it was worth it.
“I’m sorry!” she said, flushing deeply as I gasped. On the other side of the bed, Henry looked worried, but by now he was used to me overexerting myself. As long as my stitches didn’t start to bleed, everything was fine.
“Don’t,” I said once I could talk again. “I wanted to hug you. I am so monumentally sorry for everything. For yelling at you about Theo, for saying all that awful stuff to you—you didn’t deserve it, any of it.”
She waved her hand dismissively. “It doesn’t matter. You were right—I was being an idiot. But you’re alive! You’re going to make it, and I won’t be stuck here without my best friend.” She gave me a look she must’ve intended to be stern, but it made me smile. “You know, none of this would’ve happened if you had let me teach you how to swim.”
“Yeah, you were right on that,” I said, ignoring the part where I’d been stabbed before being thrown into the river. I doubted it’d matter much to Ava. “Tell you what—once Henry says I’m all right, we can find someplace on the grounds and you can teach me how.”
The grin on Ava’s face was more than worth whatever it would cost me to get into the water again.
After she left that afternoon, Henry and I played cards. Even though I was recovering, I was still destroying him, but he didn’t seem to mind. Instead, he seemed to enjoy having his backside handed to him, and I was more than happy to oblige.
“I’m going to miss you over the summer,” I said after winning my fifth game in a row. “And beating you at Jacks.”
Henry eyed me as he shuffled the deck. “I will miss you as well.” There was a note of finality in his voice that frightened me. I held out hope that the council would understand and see that sleeping together hadn’t been our fault, but had he spent the past week preparing to say goodbye to me?
“Henry?” I said softly. “Can we play pretend for a little while?”
He didn’t look at me. “Of course.”
I took a deep breath. “Can I visit sometime? I mean, I know I’m supposed to be going out and exploring the world, getting an education, passing high school, all of that, but I figured maybe if I wind up staying in Eden, I could stop by every now and then before September.”
Henry hesitated. “I meant to wait until after the meeting with the council to discuss this with you.”
“Discuss what with me?”
“Your freedom.” He looked up at me, and I stilled. “After all you have been through on account of me, I could not possibly ask you to return in the fall, no matter the council’s decision.”
I tried to hide my hurt, but there was a flash in his eyes that made it clear he noticed. “You don’t want me to come back?”
“If I had my way, you would never leave. But that was not our bargain—and more than that, you have endured a great many hardships because of me. I do not wish to further make your life miserable by forcing you to return. So I am offering you your freedom, no matter what the council decides. Your permanent freedom.”
It took me several seconds to understand what he was saying. He wanted me here, but he felt guilty—because of what? Because of what Calliope did? “But I want to come back,” I blurted, the thought of never seeing him again making my heart race. Maybe he didn’t get it, but Eden Manor was all I had left. “What am I supposed to do if you don’t let me come back? You and Ava and Ella and Sofia and—and—”
I faltered, too choked up to continue, and wiped my eyes. Abandoning his cards, Henry brushed the back of his hand against my cheek. “If you wish to come back, then I would like that very much. It is your choice to make, and that you would choose staying here over living your life…I cannot tell you what that means to me.”
“But I am living my life,” I said miserably. “And I can live my life with you, too. Just because it’s a little unconventional doesn’t mean it isn’t as good as everything else that’s out there. Better, even. Tons better.”
He hesitated. “You are very kind, and it means the world to me that you think that. But if I may say this and hope you do not take it to be any sort of slight…you were not living, Kate. Not with me and not in the real world. You were waiting for your mother to die, and now that that has happened—”
“Now that she’s gone, the only thing I have left is this place, and the only person I have left is you,” I said. “It’ll take more than a knife-wielding murderer to make me give you up.”