Chase pops up next to me. The water is still shallow enough here that my feet can find the sandy bottom, and the rolling waves hit my body at mid-chest. Ocean water darkens Chase’s coppery hair, making it gleam bronze in the sunlight. He steps toward me as the other three boys wade into the surf around us, reaching out to brush a wet strand of hair off my cheek.
Then his gaze moves lower, and his hand moves down to drift over the port scar on my chest, the pink line that serves as a constant reminder of my childhood cancer. He knows what it is now. All the guys do.
And River was right.
None of them look at me like I’m broken.
Unconsciously, my hand mirrors his movement, finding the scar from the bullet wound on his chest. It sits in almost the exact same place on his body as my scar does on mine, his own reminder of his brush with death.
Our hands slide over each other’s wet skin, tracing each other’s scars—and, okay, maybe taking the excuse to feel each other up a little bit while we’re at it.
Then Chase’s fingers move again, tilting my chin up so he can meet my gaze.
“Hey,” he murmurs, his smile beaming brighter than the sun that dapples the water with glittering points of light. “We’re alive.”
“Fuck yeah, we are.”
I press up onto my tiptoes to kiss him, letting the salty water help hold me up. His skin is cold from the water, just like mine is, but his lips are warm, and he smells like the ocean and peppermint toothpaste.
He’s alive.
So am I.
Death defined so much of this past year, but it’s not what has to define us going forward.
Iris, Judge Hollowell, Niles D’Amato—their lives were cut short. They’re all gone from this earth, frozen in time and existing only in memories, both the good and the awful.
But we’re not.
The kings and I are still here, moving and living and breathing. Changing. Growing together. Arguing and laughing and fucking and figuring our shit out.
The future stretches out before us, a blank canvas for us to paint on with all the messy colors of life.
But for today, we’ll just swim.