Page 30 of What We Become

A laugh breaks out of me before I can stop it. “Tip your head back.”

She closes her eyes, and I wet her hair slowly, keeping one hand across her forehead so the water doesn’t run into her face. Then I work the shampoo into her scalp.

Roots first. Slow pressure behind the ears. Down the length to the ends.

The first time we showered together, she gave me a detailed tutorial that ended with a threat to murder me if I damaged her hair cuticle. Back then, washing her hair was an excuse to touch her. Now it feels like something I should have learned sooner—care without rules around it. Tenderness without making her earn it first. Everything she’s always deserved but I’ve never given.

I rinse the shampoo away. When I reach for the conditioner, her hand closes around my wrist.

“Eli.”

I stop. “What?”

“What were you going to tell me?”

My fingers tighten around the bottle. “What do you mean?”

“Last night,” she says. “Before I left. You said you wanted to talk.”

“That can wait, little savage. This isn’t what I had in mind.”

“You said tomorrow.”

“You almost died.”

“And yet it’s still tomorrow.”

“Sage.”

“You promised good stuff.” Her eyes narrow. “I nearly died before I got to hear it, so I’m not accepting a rain check.”

I stare at her. Wet hair slicked down her back. Bandages turning dark at the edges. Bruises coming into sharper focus beneath the warm light. She’s still ordering me around. Still refusing to let me hide.

“I had a speech,” I say.

She bites her lip, but the smile escapes anyway. “Was there an agenda?”

“No.”

“Color coding?”

“Stop.”

“That’s not a no.”

I squeeze conditioner into my palm and work it through the ends of her hair.

“The speech had bullet points,” I say. “I’m going off-book.”

Her eyes stay closed, but her mouth curves. She waits.

I work the conditioner through a tangle near her nape, slow, careful. “Before you, I had a system. Two lives. Two selves. A wall between them thick enough that neither side could see the other. The teacher stood in the light. The hangman worked in the dark. And I told myself the wall was load-bearing—that if it ever came down, both versions of me would collapse under the rubble.”

I tilt her head forward and work the ends through my fingers, carefully using my nails to remove any remnants of the foam.

“Then you happened. And you didn’t just see both of me—you refused to choose between them. I kept waiting for you to figure out that one of us wasn’t worth keeping. Instead you loved the whole wreckage.” My voice thins. I let it. “And the wall came down, Sage. And I didn’t collapse. I started getting better. I’m a better man because you love me. A better partner. I didn’t know those were things I was allowed to become.”

“Eli.” Her eyes open. Wet lashes, and not from the shower.