Page 153 of 10 Rings I Hate About You
“In there. I think I can do it tonight.” She looked up at me. “I just can’t do it alone.”
We made our way into the bedroom, and I pulled back the covers to let her slide in first before I got in beside her. “Thank you for tonight,” she whispered. “For all of it.”
“Of course,” I said, drawing her tightly into my embrace.
Her eyes fluttered shut, and she was asleep in minutes.
I lay in the dark and listened to her breathing.
Light filtered through the blinds, creating a pattern on the ceiling.
I thought about the inscription. About the date underneath it—July, two weeks before she died—and the Thanksgiving visit Jem had been expecting but never came.
I thought about Delaney walking into this room tonight like she was afraid the grief would capture her if she slowed down.
Maybe Jem had known. She’d had that quality, by all accounts—the kind of perception that didn’t require an explanation, that simply saw things that others didn’t. Maybe she’d written that note for a visit that was always going to be this one, even if she didn’t quite know it. Or maybe in her otherworldly wisdom, she had figured it all out ahead of time.
We’d probably never know.
I looked at the woman sleeping against my chest, and I wondered if somehow we were destined to be together all along.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
DELANEY
One week.
One week of Marc cooking elaborate dinners at the farmhouse because his hands needed something to do when his brain wouldn’t slow down. One week of going back to Jem’s apartment—once alone, once with him—and finding that the room I’d been afraid to enter had started to feel less like a place I was trespassing and more like a place I was learning to find joy in. And one week of the grant committee existing in the background of every conversation, like the scene in a story when you know something bad is about to happen, but no one mentions it directly.
And now the most important class was tonight.
I stood in the shelter’s common room twenty minutes before anyone was set to arrive and did the things I always did before a class—moved through the space slowly, checking things that didn’t need checking, letting my hands settle what my nervous system couldn’t.
The room had become something special over these past few weeks. Not just a repurposed common area with yoga mats—it had become a place with intention and a place for hope to grow. I’d strung fairy lights along the window ledges and across the ceiling. The diffuser running with the blend I’d curated for this group of classes; something grounding. Crystals were scattered on the table near the door; the basket of smaller ones ready for participants to take home with them. I’d lowered the overhead lights, and the room had transformed from a more institutional look to something that felt, genuinely, like a place you came to breathe.
People around town were already asking if we’d add more classes to the calendar when the initial four were over.
I thought about Mia and Tucker. I’d seen them on Main Street yesterday—the girl and the dog, both of them moving with the inner joy of a match that had recognized itself. Tucker’s tail was thwacking at the same speed as it had when he decided Mia was his person in the middle of the last yoga class. I stood on the sidewalk watching them until they turned the corner and felt my heart squeeze at what we had just accomplished after one class.
This is what it’s for,I’d thought.
And I thought it again now, standing in the silent room.
Theo arrived before I’d finished my walkthrough, clipboard already in hand. From the tired pinch to his brow, he looked like he was running entirely on adrenaline and checklist completion.
He didn’t stop moving. Water station—checked. Animal area—checked. A quick, low exchange with one of the volunteers, his voice tight and efficient.
I understood him. I recognized the specific quality of his anxiety—the need for structure when everything felt like it was outside of your control. I’d been living in that particular register for a week.
I didn’t go to him. I wanted to. Instead, I caught his eye from across the room and gave him a single nod—I see you, we’ve got this—and he held it for a moment before turning back to his checklist.
Theo needed to know someone was paying attention.
I was paying attention.
Then the air changed before I saw him. That was the only way I knew how to describe it—some shift in the quality of air in the room, a charge that hadn’t been there a second ago. My skin registered it before my eyes did. By the time I turned toward the door, my heart had already done its small involuntary leap ofHe’s here!
Marc crossed the room with the brisk efficiency he used when he was managing himself carefully. His gaze found mine immediately—healwaysfound me right away, I’d noticed and waited for it to happen. The adjustment.
