CHAPTER
FORTY-TWO TOBIASTHE FIRST THING I see when I wake, still on the couch in the hotel room, are the birds flying over her collarbone. Her shirt, retrieved from the floor in the middle of the night because of the cold, is pulled down on one side from where she’s lying on it.
We have slept close to each other before, but this time feels different. Every other time we were there to comfort each other or to protect each other; this time we’re here just because we want to be—and because we fell asleep before we could go back to the dormitory.
I stretch out my hand and touch my fingertips to her tattoos, and she opens her eyes.
She wraps an arm around me and pulls herself across the cushions so she’s right up against me, warm and soft and pliable.
“Morning,” I say.
“Shh,” she says. “I
