“I need the sugar before I pass out,” Bryce retorted through a slurp, and then set it back down before perching on the edge of Thea’s mattress. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I was hit in the head with a large rock.” Which was, in fact, what had happened. She’d woken to nettles and brambles and Bryce calling her name. It still felt surreal. All of those murders she’d researched for the podcast, and now she’d survived her own story. She didn’t know if she could ever go back to that; she only knew that her perspective on everything had changed and she would find much less excitement in trying to understand killers now. It turned out there was little there to understand. Peter had been unhinged; so lost in the grief of his mother and his obsession with Bryce that he’d turned into a monster.
At the reminder, Thea reached for Bryce’s hand and squeezed it, her dirt-caked thumb playing with the cool bands above Bryce’s bloodied knuckles.
“I’m going to leave you two alone for a while,” Mikey said. Hedidhave some social awareness, it seemed.
“Can you keep Liv company in the waiting room?” Bryce requested hopefully.
Mikey only saluted and made himself scarce.
“I’m sorry, Thea,” she began a moment later, watery, swollen eyes falling to her unlaced boots. “I’m so sorry.”
Thea frowned. “For what?”
“For Peter. For all of this. I blamed you for luring a killer to the drive-in, but it wasme. It was me he wanted. He would have killed you.”
Thea blinked, bewildered. “You can’t really think this isyourfault.”
The tears rolling down Bryce’s cheeks said otherwise, and they caused something vital in Thea’s chest to crack. It always did when Bryce was hurting, as though her pain was Thea’s, too. She struggled up from her pillows to embrace Bryce.
“I should’ve realized it was him,” Bryce said.
“You couldn’t have known,” Thea countered softly. “None of us could’ve known.” It was true. Thea’s jealousy had been the only thing driving her distaste for Peter. The only moment she’d questioned his character, when she’d seen him among the other podcast subscribers, had been clouded by her doubt just as quickly. Because even then, she’d only thought him a slightly irritating man who liked Bryce. A thorn in Thea’s side. Not somebody capable of killing.
Thea leaned back, Bryce’s hair tangling in her own as though it was trying to keep them close. Bryce didn’t move back to her end of the bed. Didn’t take her hand from Thea’s. She hoped Bryce would stay here, wanted to feel Bryce’s warmth singing through her blood. Tonight had only cemented what Thea felt. Bryce had been strong and protective and Thea had never felt more fear than when she’d seen Peter close in on her. She loved Bryce. She would never stop loving Bryce.
But she still didn’t know if any of it was requited.
“You wanted to tell me something,” Thea muttered. “On the bridge, before…” She didn’t need to finishthatsentence. “You said you had something to tell me.”
Bryce shook her head. “It doesn’t matter now.”
“It does,” Thea pleaded, if only to know once and for all where she stood. “It matters to me.”
Shifting her weight uncomfortably, Bryce pulled one leg onto the bed, dirtying the white sheets with her muddy boot in the process. “I was going to tell you that I got an email from someone who works for Horror Town Studios. She listened to our podcast and asked me if I was interested in presenting a crime documentary. But it doesn’t matter now, Thea. I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize…” her eyes slid between them uncertainly, “us.”
Confused, Thea inched nearer until her thigh brushed Bryce’s knee. “Why would that jeopardize us?”
“Because she only asked me. I… I emailed her back because Liv wants to go to Berkeley and I don’t have nearly enough savings for that, but I can find another job and I can take out a loan. We can find something together, maybe. Something bigger than the podcast.”
Her heart panged at that. Bryce was willing to risk the opportunity of a lifetime and the financial security she’d always been desperate for… for Thea? Thea didn’t deserve that. She didn’t deserve Bryce — and more than that, she didn’t want to watch Bryce miss out on something wonderful for her own benefit.
“Are youkidding?”Thea swiped Bryce’s hair from her eyes so she could see her properly. Her hand didn’t fall back to her lap, instead resting in the whorl of her chin. “Bryce, you deserve this more thananybody.If you have a chance, you have to go for it. It won’t change anything between us.”
Surprise danced across Bryce’s solemn features. “But we started this together.”
“And we’ll end it together,” Thea whispered. “I’ll still be there on the sidelines, cheering you on. Always. How could I not?”
Bryce’s lips parted, but no words came out.
Thea shook her head at her best friend’s selflessness, wiping an escaping tear from the corner of her eye with a delicate, trembling thumb. “You’ve struggled for so long just to get by, B. I would never want you to sacrifice anything for me. You’re always looking after other people, always looking afterme. Look afteryourself,now.”
They were so close now that the tips of their noses grazed. Bryce’s was pink from crying, her face blotchy — but still beautiful, and still Bryce’s, and still everything that Thea adored in the world. And she knew that it was now or never. She knew that this was her chance, and if spilling her heart now would end in them drowning, there would still be some way of salvaging it. Together, they could get through anything. Even an intense, unwavering, potentially unrequited love.
So Thea blurted the truth without any of the fear that had plagued her for years. “I’m in love with you.”
Bryce stilled beneath her fingertips, dark eyes flickering to meet Thea’s.
“I’m in love with you,” Thea repeated, if only to fill the stifling silence. “And not in a best friend way. In a ‘my heart bursts open every time I see you’ way. In a ‘if you killed someone, I’d help you bury the body’ way. Is that too soon? Let me think of another analogy. In a —”
Bryce’s lips swallowed whatever babble Thea was going to continue on with, leaving Thea breathless and safe and yet somehow on fire. She lost herself to the flames, lost herself to all of it. The beeping of heart monitors and the squeaking of nurses’ rubber shoes across the linoleum, the clinically bright lights overhead, Thea’s tender wound at the crown of her head — they all became secondary. As long as Bryce was here, she could survive anything.
Shehadsurvived anything. For Bryce. For this.
“I’m in love with you too.” Bryce’s bottom lip grazed against her teeth in a way that left Thea trembling. “And not in afriendway.”
It was everything Thea had ever needed to hear, and she smiled into her next kiss, and all the ones after. Because somehow, against all odds, Bryce loved her back. Her partner in crime, the love of her life, her tough, resilient, sensitive, strong Bryce loved Thea back.
Thea could finally let herself believe it.