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Licking his thumb, Wynnter catches me watching and raises his brows. “Want some, baby?”

My heart rate accelerates at the notion I might join the carnage. “Maybe just a bite.”

He tears a piece of white meat off, plates a hand beneath it, and holds it across the console for me.

As I bite into the morsel, I think that I could absolutely get used to this.

Maybe it’ll get old someday. Boring. Perpetual.

But I can’t picture that right now.

Even with an ache in my chest that doesn’t seem to want to lift, I’m happy. So happy. My best friend lives a walking distance away from my new home. Wynnter is as he’s always been: unparalleled in his consideration, wholly attentive, flawlessly attractive. Helping with his work has been easy and fun, leaving so much space for me to drift into fantasies that no longer feel unattainable.

Everything about my new life is wonderful. Perfectly wonderful.

Opening up my sandwich, I realize I’ve been happy loads of times before, but this may be the first time in my life that I’ve ever been truly content. The realization does things for my soul, and I find the responding gratitude overwhelmingly warm.

“You always used to bring one of those to school,” Wynn murmurs, breaking into my thoughts.

“Hm?”

“A wrap.”

I look at the food in my lap. “Oh. Yeah. I’d ask our cook to make them for me. Cafe food was scary.”

“Understandable. It scared everyone.” He dunks a piece of his meat in his cup of mashed potatoes and uses it to scoop some to his mouth. “I’ve never asked you before. How come your parents let you go to our regular and fairly average public school? It seems like the kind of thing they’d be against.”

Yeah, they were. For nearly two full years after we moved into Amarella, they refused to listen to me. I begged to change schools throughout middle, and I pleaded once the same kids graduated with me to the high school my parents picked. The torment got worse, and I got even more desperate. “I was being bullied at the preppy private place they sent me.”

Wynnter freezes. “You what?”

“I’ve always been a little head in the clouds. I wouldn’t pay attention much in class, but I’d go home and study, so I’d get good grades. I guess the other kids didn’t like that much. The way a ditzy princess with too much money and no brains still managed to get the A’s everyone else was struggling for didn’t go over well. They called me names and accused me of cheating—said I was sleeping with teachers or bribing graders from the other section for answer keys. The staff got involved a few times, and I had to prove I wasn’t doing anything wrong, but it was just…exhausting. It was exhausting, and I had no friends, and my parents thought it was normal, so they didn’t help for a long while. Eventually, my pleading and crying got through to my father, though, and he transferred me with the promise that if public school didn’t work out, either, I’d be tutored at home. I didn’t want to be tutored, though. I wanted friends. I didn’t want to be cooped up at home even more than I already was. So I’m unbelievably glad I found August and you.”

“Your parents seem to have a listening deficiency if you had to plead and cry more than once with all that going on. It’s very easy to tell when you’re being dramatic and when you’re being serious,” he grumbles.

“Mm.” I pull a slice of cucumber from my wrap and nibble it. “My father especially has a problem with conflating his opinions as facts. He was of the opinion that some bullying was normal and built character, and once his daughter was stronger, she’d stop coming home in tears.”

“Sorry, but what the—” He swears.

I mellow, detached from it all. “Maybe they didn’t know how to tell when I was being serious or dramatic. I’m sure it can’t be easy to raise a single child when you’re constantly busy with work. It’s not like kids come with rules, right?”

“Once again, you’re giving them an awful lot of credit and grace.”

I chew a bite of my wrap and say, “I know they love me. I know it. In their own ways, they’ve just wanted what’s best for me. My father’s pretty stubborn and set in his ways, so the fact he gave in at all means something. I don’t know. There were a lot of wrong and messed up things in their parenting, but what parenting is perfect? And who am I to judge?” I look out the window. “My mother texted me this morning. They gave up calling over and over late last night, but she texted this morning, just asking for me to message back and confirm that I was still okay. They aren’t bad people. I just know that if it took two years before my father even bent in his opinion on school, I can’t tolerate doing that again when what I’m fighting against this time is literally not being locked in a room.”

“Being locked up at your age is insane.” Wynnter shakes his head. “Actually, being locked up at any age is insane. There’s a difference between sending a kid to their room and literally having the doors flipped so you can lock them in there. That’s—” He swears. “—sick.”

“I fear they still think of me as their little girl in a lot of ways. Their efforts to protect me are suffocating, but genuine. Which.” I swallow tears. “Which just makes it harder.”

“I’m so sorry, Dece.”

I lift a shoulder. “Kids aren’t easy. But parents need to let them become adults at some point.”

“Do you…want kids? Ever?”

I flush and fiddle with a piece of tortilla. “Y-yes, I do.”

“How many?”