Chapter 54

Harper's POV

I’m stitched up now, a thick white bandage wrapped tight around my arm, the ache beneath it dull and pulsing but no longer sharp. Mark has his arms around me as we sit curled together on the couch, the glow of the television flickering across the room in colors I don’t really see. Some show is playing, something loud and fast-paced, but it barely touches the edges of my thoughts. I can’t follow the plot, or even the sound of the dialogue.

My mind is foggy, stretched thin from everything that’s happened, but underneath the exhaustion, there’s something deeper. I don’t know how to name it, just this weight in my chest that makes it hard to breathe right. I want to let it go. I want to take everything I’m holding, all the fear and guilt and tension that’s burrowed under my skin, and hand it over to someone else. Just for a while. Just long enough to feel what it’s lik