was that interesting to look at right now. “I want you. I want seclusion. Quiet. Distance. Maybe it’s selfish, but I want to escape this place. Not the way Kat wanted me to or Sam or Gina. I want to be me, and I don’t think I can be that here. Not anymore.” Licking her bottom lip, she lifted a shoulder. “I don’t think I was ever me because nobody allowed me to figure out who that was.”
“I think that sounds good,” I admitted. Better than good, but I didn’t want to scare her with how much I wanted to kiss her and tell her we could leave tonight if she wanted to. I knew she wouldn’t.
Her brows lifted. “You do?”
“I love you, Della. If you want to leave, we’ll leave. I’ve thought about it for a long time and there was only one person who kept me here.” I smiled. “It wasn’t Dallas, sweetheart.”
The smallest smile curved her lips as she leaned into me, her forehead resting against my shoulder as she exhaled. “I need to talk to Sophie and Lydia. And…do you think it’d be a bad idea if I went to Kat’s funeral if she’s having one?”
I kissed her head. “I don’t think that’d be a bad idea at all. I’ll go with you. We’ll keep an ear out for a service, okay?”
“You hated her.”
“I hated her family and what they made her into. Not the same thing. Even if it were, I’d still go to be there for you.” Her lips brushed my collarbone. “Doesn’t matter the situation, you need me, and I’ll be there.”
“What if I always need you?”
“You’re stronger that.”
“Why don’t I feel it then?” she doubted, moving closer to me. I wrapped her up and hauled her into my lap. Ramsay barked from the floor and watched me embrace Della on the couch. “He’s angry he’s not the one being held by you. Fairly sure he’s in love with you.”
I chuckled at that. “He’ll have to deal with being second.”
“Let me guess, Dallas is the first?”
The second I snorted, I heard a soft laugh against my chest. Her body loosened as I shifted us again, my back against the cushion with her side pressed against my front and her legs stretched across the cushion beside us. “You’re a smartass, you know that?”
“But you love me?” she asked.
“On a scale from one to Dallas?” I mused, kissing her head again as she leaned into me. “I can honestly say my life wouldn’t be the same without you in it. Now, you need to try eating something. Don’t let what happened throw off the progress you’ve made. Wouldn’t want Ripley to get after you again.”
She groaned, probably thinking about all the pamphlets her therapist had sent home with her after her last session a few days ago. “I know going to a group isn’t the worst idea, but it feels like sitting around a circle and exchanging stories about how we starved ourselves or made ourselves vomit is a bad idea. Like it’ll give us reason to start again.”
“It’s for support,” I reminded her, a conversation we had when she’d let herself into my office after the appointment and went on a thirty-five minute rant about how Ripley had wanted her to join a recovery group focused solely on eating disorders. I hadn’t gotten a word in edge wise the entire time she told me about it, only nodding so she knew I was listening. When she’d finally taken a breath, sat in the chair across from me, and politely declined Abigail’s offer to get her something drink, I said, “It might not be such a bad idea.”
She hadn’t said anything about it since.
“She cares about you, Della. It’s not a bad thing to have an army behind you. If we do choose to go somewhere else, imagine what it’ll be like to not have her in your life.”
I reached forward carefully and grabbed the plate, handing it to her. She wrapped her fingers around the edges and rested it on her lap, giving me a heavy sigh in return. “I appreciate everything she’s done for me. I’ll admit, I’m not sure what it’d be like not talking to her about life after so long. Do you think we’d go far? I mean, Sophie is still here. I know she’s a grown woman, but she and Lydia are the only family I have left.”
I rubbed her arm as she picked up the fork and sliced