Page 35 of 10 Rings I Hate About You
I was in so much trouble.
And the worst part?
I had no idea what to do about it.
Chapter Seven
DELANEY
The shrill scream of my phone alarm sliced through my sleep.
I flung an arm out blindly, fingers scrambling across the coffee table until I knocked my phone to the floor. The vibration rattled against the thin rug, echoing on the hardwood beneath it.
I lunged for it.
And lunged too far. The couch betrayed me.
My shoulder rolled, my weight shifted, and the momentum carried me straight over the edge like I’d forgotten gravity existed. Pain exploded through my hip as I hit the living room floor with a thud hard enough to rattle my teeth.
“Fucking hell.” I rolled onto my back, blinking up at the ceiling fan spinning above me, unhelpful, and possibly mocking me. My pulse thudded in my ears. My hip screamed. My hair was in my face, and my soul felt like it hadn’t fully returned to my body.
I turned my head and glared at the upholstered floral monstrosity I’d been sleeping on since I moved to Ruby River three months ago.
Three months.
The couch was faded and lumpy and too short for any human with legs. The cushions were worn and smelled faintly of lavender. And yet, as ugly as it was, it held some of my fondest memories of time spent with my aunt.
Every morning, I woke up with a crick in my neck and an ache in my ribs, along with the same exhausted thought:You could always sleep in a bed.
The thought came soft. Cruelly.
My gaze snagged on the closed door to my great-aunt’s old bedroom. And my throat tightened instantly.
I wasn’t ready.
The brass knob caught a thin line of morning light. The door was the same as it always had been—unchanged and indifferent to everything that had happened. As though Aunt Jem might be inside, humming off-key while she folded laundry and told me my chakras were unaligned.
But she wasn’t here anymore.
She was gone.
And the room behind that door still belonged to her so completely that walking in there made me feel like I was trespassing. It was why it took me so long to finally move to Ruby River after she passed. I packed most of my belongings and flew in for Ruby Night, but I didn’t even make it into her apartment. I stayed with Cheryl that weekend. After I spent Christmas with my parents, since my lease was up at the end of January, and my things were already packed, there was nothing left but to try and do what my aunt asked of me. To come home. To run Sacred Serenity. To be where she wasn’t.
Tears came, hot and unrepentant. I pressed the heels of my hands to my face, but they fell regardless. I hated how quick grief could ambush me—as if it had checked my calendar and found an opening.
Because it wasn’t just the room.
It was what the room meant. If I slept in her bed, I’d be admitting she wasn’t coming back to it. If I packed up her clothes, I’d be proving she’d never wear them again. If I opened that closet, I might smell her perfume, and I didn’t trust myself not to collapse right there on the carpet and not get up.
So instead, I slept on the couch each night.
Like a coward.
“Get up,” I muttered to myself.
Because that was the thing about me. I might fall. I might avoid. I might cry in yoga poses meant to be empowering.
But I got up.
