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Reyna didn’t remember a time in her life before Thalia.
There were vague memories of a first meeting, or one of the first, at least – both of them in frilly little dresses they hated, sneaking off much too easily for four or five year olds, getting mud all over themselves, and earning a scolding when they were finally discovered – though even those blended into others until Reyna couldn’t be sure where Before Thalia ended and With Thalia began.
The memory of where Thalia and Reyna truly began, though, was clear as day even seventeen years later.
It was a Friday night, well past three in the morning. Sleepovers were a nearly weekly occurrence for them at the small age of eleven years old and on those nights they rarely slept more than a few hours. Instead they stayed up as late as they could, talking about nothing and giggling about everything. There were tears in Thalia’s eyes from trying to keep her laughter quiet. If they woke Beryl again they would definitely be forced to separate for the night and neither of them wanted that.
Their laughter quieted. They laid beside each other, just looking as silence fell between them. The silence turned to something heavier – anticipation. Reyna didn’t even fully understand her own feelings in the moment, but her eyes fluttered closed and Thalia kissed her. A peck on the lips, there and then gone, and when it was done they resumed the silent staring, this time with wide eyes that betrayed their own confusion. Neither of them said anything else. Sleep came shortly after.
In the morning they didn’t speak about it, but every time Reyna looked at Thalia she remembered. She couldn’t so much as glance at her best friend without her heart racing. Days, weeks, months dragged on, that little peck on the lips shared in complete darkness becoming more like a dream than a memory. Maybe it was a dream, Reyna had found herself thinking. In the months after, she dreamed of it again and again. The first time being a dream wasn’t so far fetched.
And, she decided, it was stupid. Thalia was her best friend. Best friends didn’t kiss.
Best friends also didn’t get jealous when their best friend was asked out by the cutest boy in the seventh grade, which was what happened almost a year later when Thalia received a declaration of love from said cutest boy in the seventh grade (whose name Reyna would forget before long). All the other girls oohed and ahhed. Reyna just stared, anger bubbling in her chest, her mind replaying those precious seconds in the dark she’d unwittingly clung to.
She tried to hide her blush, and ignore the way her heart soared, when Thalia had glanced at her and then turned to the cutest boy in the seventh grade and replied to his confession with a curt, “Sorry. I like someone else.”
Reyna didn’t ask who. Thalia didn’t tell her.
Life went on normally. They spent days together laughing and getting in trouble and occasionally holding hands. More than occasionally, actually. As time passed, Reyna realized Thalia was almost always holding her hand, or clinging to her on the couch during movies, or snuggling closer at night when they fell asleep during sleepovers. Reyna told herself it was all in her head. She became frustrated with herself for noticing, and even more frustrated because she liked it so much, and further frustrated still because soon all she could think about was that stolen peck on the lips in the dark and how badly she wanted another.
Years of acting as if that kiss had never happened came to a head when Reyna was finally on the end of a love confession halfway through freshman year of high school. He was a bulky football player a year older. Reyna figured he was okay looking, though he was clumsy and not very good with his words, and his eyes weren’t nearly blue enough for her taste, nor was his face spattered with freckles more interesting to look at than any constellations in the sky.
When he asked her to Homecoming she shrugged and said, “Sure.”
Thalia stared at her from down the hall, her lips flattened into a straight line, her eyes cold and narrowed, and then stormed off.
That night Reyna went to Thalia’s. Jason let her in, grinning the way he always did when she showed up. One of his teeth newly missing and he seemed to want to tell her all about how he’d lost it that day at school. Reyna didn’t really have time for Jason, though, so she shrugged him off and made straight for Thalia’s room.
“I didn’t even know you liked him,” Thalia said immediately, her voice hard and her glare just as cold as it had been in the hall earlier that day.
Reyna was annoyed, though she couldn’t pinpoint why. “Yeah, well, I don’t really, but what’s wrong with going?”
“Going with me wasn’t good enough?” Thalia demanded and Reyna noted the hardness had turned to something more gentle, but just as difficult to hear – pain.
“You don’t even want to go,” Reyna replied, plopping down on the edge of Thalia’s bed and crossing her arms.
Thalia didn’t have a response because she knew it was true. For weeks she’d been complaining about how dumb dances were and how it would be more fun to stay home like they did every Saturday night, make popcorn, watch a movie, stay up until all hours. Cuddle, Reyna thought. Maybe finally steal another kiss.
No, if Thalia cared about that kiss she would have done it again by then. Reyna was tired of sitting around pining after something she wasn’t entirely sure she hadn’t dreamed up. She was going to go to Homecoming with a big, awkward football player and get a real kiss so she could forget all about her stupid, juvenile fixation.
“Don’t go,” Thalia finally said, her voice small. The pain in her voice had turned again into something new, this time fear. “Don’t go with him. Go with me.”
Reyna turned to her best friend, her heart pounding, and searched the familiar face that looked back at her. There was determination in Thalia’s eyes. Her chin was held high, defiant, but one glace down at where Thalia was gripping the comforter as if her life depended on it betrayed the confident act just as much as the tremble in her voice had.
For the first time Reyna thought maybe all that time she had been waiting for Thalia, Thalia had been waiting for her.
Without another thought, she crawled across the bed, took her best friend’s face between her hands and kissed. She kissed for real, not some chaste little peck on the lips, but the kind of kiss Reyna had always seen in the movies. The kind of kiss that would make Reyna groan and Thalia throw popcorn at the screen, except now it was their kiss, and Reyna was blushing something furious and Thalia’s hands had gone from clinging to the bed spread to clinging to the shirt of Reyna’s uniform.
“I’ll go with you,” Reyna answered, after what might have been seconds or might have been minutes, when they pulled apart and gazed at each other, breathless.
Canceling on that guy was easy enough. Reyna lied that her mom didn’t want her dating. No one thought twice about the lie when Reyna showed up to the dance later that month with Thalia instead, even though Thalia wore slacks instead of a dress and the two of them danced every slow dance holding each other as close as humanly possible. It hardly seemed out of the ordinary for the two of them. In reality, it wasn’t at all. It was how they’d always been, consciously or not, but to them it was very different.
Hiding from their parents was the easiest task of all. Jason made it especially simple to hide, since no one would suspect the pair of being anything more than friends when they carted a silly little kid around with them everywhere they went. Sleepovers took on a new meaning, though. Those nights were still spent giggling together in the dark, though instead of just talking they were learning how to kiss, hearts racing in time with each other while their hands tentatively explored.
The first time they almost broke their cover was the night Jason kissed Reyna. Thalia had never yelled at him like that, and Reyna had to stop her from beating her little brother with a pillow, all the while laughing because she didn’t know what to do other than laugh. Reyna let the poor kid down as easily as she could, but Thalia spent the rest of the night glaring at her brother. Even years later she wasn’t sure if that glare was anger or jealousy. Thalia was no longer the only person Reyna had kissed, even though a dumb twelve year old didn’t really count.
The second time they almost broke their cover was a much less pleasant memory, one Reyna didn’t like to revisit no matter how much time passed. In the summer before Reyna and Thalia’s senior year of high school, when everything seemed most perfect and Reyna felt absolutely untouchable by sadness, one thing changed it all. Bianca di Angelo died.
As many nights has she had spent with Thalia and the Graces, she had spent with the di Angelos. Reyna was there that weekend. The day was especially hot, muggy even, and Reyna was lazing around in the house where air conditioning made life tolerable, texting Thalia because being apart sucked as much as anything had ever sucked, even when it was just a week or two at a time. Bianca, only twelve years old, the same age as Jason and just as annoying (just as much a sibling), had been bothering her all afternoon. Reyna finally told her to get lost and Bianca trudged off.
For an hour or so Reyna enjoyed her peace and quiet, but the price for that peace and quiet was high. Too high. Reyna was still there when little Hazel, nine years old, a di Angelo by blood but not by name, stumbled through the front door, soaking wet and screaming for help. Time didn’t seem real as she and Maria di Angelo, Bianca and Nico’s mother, but not Hazel’s, ran out the door in response.
Reyna got to the lake first. She was younger and faster than the adults that followed in her wake. Her eyes refused to believe what they were seeing. Bianca was on the ground, soaked and motionless. That kid who hung around in the summers to swim, whose mom worked cleaning house – Percy, she thought his name was – hovered above her, trying with all his twelve year old might to give Bianca CPR. Maria screamed from behind Reyna and charged past to her daughter, throwing Percy off.
Whether because of Hazel’s cries for help or because of the panicked running of Reyna and Maria, a few other adults had gathered – Percy’s mother, one of the groundskeepers, and Mr. di Angelo himself – along with little Hazel, only just beginning to dry. Reyna vaguely heard one of them calling 911, but it was hard to focus on anything besides Maria’s tears, desperate demands to know what had happened, and futile attempts to wake her daughter.
It wasn’t until Mr. di Angelo demanded an answer as to what had happened that Percy spoke up. He looked scared, his eyes darting from his mother, to Hazel, to Mr. di Angelo. Reyna looked back at Hazel, noted the way she trembled even as Percy blurted out, “It was my fault.”
Every eye turned to him as he continued, “I wanted to swim in the lake. I thought it would be okay, but it was too cold. I wasn’t paying attention and at some point Bianca went under. I tried to pull her out, I did, but she must have been under too long.”
Maria di Angelo looked at Percy’s mother and said, her voice full of heartbreak and venom, “Leave. Take your son and leave. You’re fired.”
A week later Reyna was standing in a graveyard, wearing black, looking down at the tombstone of a twelve year old girl she had loved like a sister. Thalia was at her side, holding her hand. Thalia’s hand was the only thing that kept her grounded in reality.
The world seemed empty and dark. Reyna was crippled by anger, sadness and guilt. She wanted to tear the world down. As time passed she would pour those feelings into a single grudge, until they became so compartmentalized she could almost forget them entirely, as long as she didn’t think about the little black haired boy who had tempted Bianca into the lake. Not that day, though. That day she felt them in their entirety, and it was the worst day of her life.
In a quiet moment, away from the many eyes that had been on them all day, Thalia had sneaked a gentle kiss, whispered a few comforting words to her. They had hardly made a dent on Reyna’s grief, but she appreciated them all the same. When they’d turned to rejoin the other mourners, they’d discovered Bianca’s little brother, the middle of the di Angelo children, Nico, staring at them, his bloodshot eyes wide.
“Nico,” Reyna had called, as the boy began to back away, “Nico, don’t tell anyone.”
He never told.
Their last year of high school passed in a blur, and then Reyna and Thalia found themselves standing on the precipice of the future. Mr. Grace wanted Thalia to go to NYU, his alma mater and the alma mater of generations of Graces before him, the school all Thalia’s siblings had gone to. Reyna had already been accepted to USC and she wanted to go. New York had lost its charm for her. Reyna wanted to escape.
“Why can’t you just stay?” Thalia asked for the thousandth time, angry, frustrated.
“You hate this city and your parents more than anyone,” Reyna answered, just as angry, just as frustrated. They’d had this argument almost every day for months.
“I can’t leave Jason,” Thalia replied, which Reyna knew. “Mom’s finally sober again, but who knows if it’ll last.”
Thalia had spent years protecting Jason from their mother’s drunken fits of rage, at least as best as she could. There was more than just their mother to consider, though. Thalia didn’t dare speak it to words, but the one they all truly feared was her father. While Beryl may have been the one who laid hands on the children, Mr. Grace was the one who had always been capable of doing real damage.
Jason was growing up, but Thalia would always be his big sister, the one who had watched him more closely than any nanny, the one who’d nursed him when he was ill, the one who helped him with his homework. There was no way Thalia could leave him behind. Reyna didn’t want to leave Jason, either, not after what had happened to Bianca, but the idea of staying in New York even a second longer was too much for her.
They were at an impasse. They would have to accept spending the next four years apart.
Reyna didn’t like it, but she wasn’t about to give up on her best friend, the love of her life, just because they were going to be on opposite sides of the country. In the end, it wasn’t Reyna’s choice, though. A week before she was set to leave for school, with cold blue eyes, chin held high and voice shaking, Thalia said they should break up. They did.
Freshman year of college sucked. Reyna’s heart was broken. Reyna was broken. She didn’t know how to live a life that didn’t include Thalia, but suddenly they weren’t even best friends anymore. Every day she thought about going home, transferring to NYU, taking everything back. It wasn’t too late, couldn’t be too late, because not only could she not live a life without Thalia, she realized she didn’t want to.
Her hopes were dashed when she returned home for the summer. On her first night back there was a party at the Grace apartment. Reyna had meant to surprise Thalia, which was her first mistake. Thalia wasn’t at the party alone. Her date was a smiling, bright eyed red head who covered her mouth when she laughed and whispered to Thalia every few seconds, their arms always around each other.
Reyna tried to disappear out the door before she was seen, but Jason was there (seriously, Reyna thought, where was the adult supervision – fourteen year old Jason did not belong at a party for college kids).
“Why are you crying?” Jason asked almost instantly after he’d given her his usual, cheery, excited greeting.
She hadn’t realized she was crying. How humiliating. “Just emotional from being home.”
“Thals will be excited to see you,” he supplied. Reyna wasn’t sure if his crush on her had faded yet, but regardless, she was consoled by how much he cared.
“No,” Reyna replied with a bitter laugh, feeling a little guilt for speaking so harshly to Jason, “I don’t think she will.”
Jason looked confused and she couldn’t blame him, but when he looked from Reyna’s embarrassingly tear streaked face to where Thalia and her date were standing, the truth dawned on him in two blinks of bright blue eyes – bright blue eyes that were painfully identical to Thalia’s. “Oh.”
“I’ll see you around, Jace,” Reyna told him, ducking out before he could stop her. She didn’t see him around, at least not that summer.
When Reyna returned to school in the fall she refused to let herself continue being broken. She went to mixers and parties and she let her roommate set her up on dates. Reyna had a boyfriend for a few months and he was a decent kisser, but very bad at everything else. After that she thought maybe her issue was just not being interested in guys, but after an even shorter lived relationship with a sweet freshman girl who was a very good kisser and just as good at everything else, but still never seemed to light a fire in Reyna, she realized her issue had nothing to do with gender.
No matter who she met, she was always comparing them to Thalia. Thalia was taller, it was nice to feel small every once in a while. Thalia was shorter, someone too tall was awkward to kiss. Thalia laughed more at her stupid jokes, it was nice to feel funny. Thalia didn’t laugh at her stupid jokes so easily, it was better to feel challenged. Thalia was more masculine. Thalia was more feminine. A million contradictions to which only Thalia was the perfect medium. Thalia. Thalia. Thalia.
Thalia. The summer after sophomore year of college she was there, at a garden party the di Angelos were hosting.
No one under the age of thirty wanted to be at that party, and even the people over the age of thirty only wanted to be there for the status an invitation represented. It didn’t take Reyna long to begin regretting the dress she’d chosen, white and frilly in a way her mother praised but made her feel ridiculous. She hated it most of all because she’d always imagined wearing something much more enticing (revealing) the next time she saw Thalia.
“You look like one of the doilies my gran Rhea makes.”
Reyna had taken a few minutes to hide from the pretentious adults in a bathroom and hadn’t expected Thalia to be waiting for her when she emerged. There Thalia Grace was, though, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed across her chest, a smirk on her lips. At least Thalia looked equally ridiculous in a short sleeved button up tucked into white jeans and a floral patterned vest.
“Two years and that’s all you have to say to me?” Reyna replied, not feeling up to playing any games.
“No,” Thalia said, and with a few swift strides she was pushing Reyna against the bathroom door and they were kissing.
Those torturous two years melted away as Thalia’s mouth claimed hers. It had never not been Thalia’s to claim, not once in Reyna’s life. Reyna slid her fingers into Thalia’s spiky hair and crushed the product coated strands in her grip, her whole body responding to the familiar and satisfying crunch.
Kissing Thalia was like riding a bike – every detail came back to her in crystal clarity. Their mouths moved together, drawing out contented sighs and desperate moans as teeth teased lips and tongues flirted in a well practiced dance. Thalia tasted like the punch they were serving at the party. In the back of her mind she’d wondered if maybe Thalia had been spiking it and this was a reckless, drunken mistake at a stupid, boring party, but there was no hint of alcohol on her tongue. They were both completely clearheaded.
Thinking of nothing but her own desire as Thalia’s lips finally dropped to her jaw, Reyna reached behind her and twisted the knob to open the bathroom door behind her. Together they stumbled inside and then it was Reyna pushing Thalia against the door and Thalia reaching back to click the lock into place. Reyna pressed herself against Thalia, letting her hands flutter down and begin to unbutton Thalia’s embarrassing vest and the shirt beneath it.
It wasn’t long before Thalia was pushing her deeper into the bathroom and pulling at Reyna’s annoying, flowing skirt, until the fabric was pooled around Reyna’s hips and her bare thighs hit the bathroom sink. A confident hand pushed Reyna’s legs apart and well practiced fingers wasted no time pressing past her underwear and inside her, making Reyna gasp and whine.
Reyna continued to fight to find skin under Thalia’s shirt, pushing up Thalia’s thin bralette and smiling as her palms slid over hardened nipples and earned an aggressive moan in reply. They continued like that, with Thalia’s lips on Reyna’s neck, Reyna’s hands fondling Thalia’s perfectly pert breasts, and Thalia’s fingers expertly driving Reyna toward release, until the small room was filled with their heavy breaths and desperate cries.
“I love you,” Thalia practically growled, as her teeth grazed Reyna’s ear, and that was all it took to send Reyna tumbling over the edge into the bliss of an orgasm she’d needed since the moment Thalia had walked out of her life.
It was the first time Thalia had said those words aloud. They’d never felt the need, at least Reyna hadn’t. She knew she loved Thalia and she knew Thalia loved her. There had never been a question, not before.
Now it was wrong.
Before she’d even properly finished her orgasm, Reyna was pushing Thalia’s hand away and slipping from the counter. Her dress settled back around her easily, much more easily than the pounding ache between her thighs would settle itself. She looked at Thalia for a few heart wrenching seconds, torn between wanting nothing more than to go back to the only person she’d ever loved and being terrified of what going back would mean.
Nothing had changed. Reyna would go back to USC in a couple short months. Thalia would stay in New York, where her family expected her and her brother needed her.
“I’m sorry,” Reyna told Thalia, swallowing down the urge to sob, and then she ran for the second summer in a row.
Somehow, impossibly, another year passed. Reyna didn’t remember much of it.
She’d been back in New York for several weeks, spending most of her time at the di Angelos’ upstate for the sole purpose of avoiding running into Thalia in the city – okay, hanging out with Nico was actually turning out a little enjoyable too – when she got a text message from Jason.
JASON (04:47PM)
Thalia’s been in an accident. It’s pretty bad. Hospital details to follow.
Sixteen, Jason had grown into the more responsible of the youngest two Grace siblings, possibly of all ten. Reyna had not witnessed any of it first hand, of course, but she’d heard stories from her mother about how much Thalia partied and how Jason took care of his older sister when she was a complete mess. It annoyed her, the way people talked about Thalia, like she hadn’t raised Jason herself, given up most of her childhood because Mr. Grace was too busy and Beryl was too drunk. The adults didn’t want to admit what Thalia had done because then they’d have to admit they’d all allowed it.
Based on the formality and the subsequent delivery of details, Reyna assumed Jason sent the text messages to everyone who might care. Probably he just thought Reyna should know, that she might want to send flowers or a card, but didn’t expect her to rush there. She told herself this, even as her entire body ached with the need to go. As if he knew she’d be too stubborn to go without prodding, Jason sent another text shortly thereafter.
JASON (05:02PM)
I need you here. I’m scared. Please?
That was all Reyna could take. Her doubts and conflict with Thalia didn’t matter when it was Jason who needed her – Jason who’d greeted her with a toothless grin for all those years, Jason who gone almost everywhere with her as they were growing up, Jason who had kissed her like an absolute psycho when he was twelve and she was seventeen, Jason who had wanted to comfort her when she was crying but who she’d run from and not bothered to even call since. Jason who was as much her little brother as Thalia’s and always would be.
Reyna secretly hoped Jason had been exaggerating to get her there in some sweet, meddlesome, brotherly gesture, but she was gravely mistaken.
Thalia was in the ICU. Her body was covered in dark, deep bruises. Both her arms and one of her legs were in casts. There was an IV on her unbroken leg, and another in the vein on her neck. None of that would have worried Reyna much were it not for the ventilator they had Thalia on. Reyna was no doctor, but she knew ventilators meant dying.
No. Thalia couldn’t be dying. Reyna couldn’t lose anyone else she loved.
“What happened?” Reyna asked from the door, her voice barely above a whisper but carrying easily across the quiet room to where Jason sat at his sister’s bedside.
Jason looked up at her. He seemed even younger than the last time she’d seen him, despite being two years older, alone and helpless, his eyes swollen and bloodshot from crying. “Her stupid motorcycle,” he replied weakly and then the tears spilled over and Reyna rushed across the room to envelop him in her arms.
She held Jason and they both cried while watching Thalia, listening to the gentle sounds of her ventilator and the monitors beeping along with her vital signs. Reyna didn’t make Jason say another word, saved all her questions for when someone who wasn’t a terrified sixteen year old boy could answer them. Soon enough a nurse came along to check on Thalia.
In hushed tones so Jason didn’t have to hear the bad news all over again, the nurse explained that Thalia had swelling on her brain as a result of her accident. They were monitoring the situation closely, treating her with oxygen therapy, fluids and medication, but hadn’t yet ruled out the possibility of a surgical intervention. The next twenty-four hours would be critical. Everything the nurse said made sense, but Reyna’s mind refused to process the information. It didn’t seem possible.
Once Jason had reigned in his tears again, he explained to Reyna that his father was in Europe on business and his mother was filming in LA. Neither would be coming. Reyna wrapped her arms around him again and let him cling to her. She clung to him too. They waited.
For twenty-four hours Reyna stewed in her own stupid thoughts. She was terrified Thalia would never wake up. She was furious at Thalia for letting this happen. She was angry at herself for walking out of that bathroom the summer before. She was distraught they’d wasted three years apart when something like this could have happened at any second. She was guilty she’d made Jason ask her to come when she should have been there all along. She was heartbroken she may never get a chance to tell Thalia she loved her too.
“I’ve missed you, Rey,” Jason said into the silence at one point during that endless, terrible day. His head was resting on her shoulder, his voice still weak and raspy from continuous crying. She felt it in the way he spoke, the comfort with which he leaned on her, that his childhood crush was nothing but a memory. All that remained between them was familiarity and love.
Reyna rubbed his back the way she used to when he was a toddler, the way that had always lulled him to sleep no matter how stubbornly he clung to consciousness. It comforted them both. “I’ve missed you, too.”
Shortly after the twenty-four hour mark, they took Thalia off the ventilator and let her breathe naturally. The swelling had gone down enough that they were confident she’d make a recovery without surgery, but she’d be unconscious for a while longer. Nurses urged Jason and Reyna to go home, get some rest and refresh, but they couldn’t bring themselves to leave. Neither of them could bear to be away from Thalia’s side until she opened her eyes.
Thalia and Jason’s sister, Diana, the only one either of them had ever been particularly close with, came by on the third day, bringing a change of clothes for the two sitting vigil. She promised to swing by again, or force her twin, Apollo, to do it for her. Reyna supposed it was a kindness, and Jason seemed comforted by a visit from one of their other siblings, but Reyna couldn’t help being angered by how little care was being given. Some of that anger turned inward, at herself, for having left Thalia alone.
In the several days that passed without Thalia stirring, Reyna busied herself with calls to her mother and shooting off e-mails on her phone. After several pulled strings and a very generous donation, Reyna officially transferred from USC to NYU for her final year of college (well, a year and a summer semester, because colleges were stupid and not all her credits were going to transfer). She’d never been so thankful to have such a well connected family. Whatever happened when Thalia woke up, Reyna knew one thing – she wouldn’t be leaving again. It didn’t matter if she’d ruined her chances with Thalia the summer before, she would stay and get the people she loved (Thalia and Jason both) through this hardship.
Reyna was asleep when Thalia woke up, because of course she was. All the sleepless hours spent staring at an unconscious face, praying for those blue eyes to open, and Thalia had chosen to wake up when Reyna was asleep instead. Jason nudged Reyna’s shoulder gently until she jumped up, heart pounding, worried something had gone terribly wrong. Instead of terribly wrong, she looked over at Thalia and saw the beautiful blue eyes she’d prayed for and a pained smirk staring back at her.
“You look hot,” Thalia said, her voice like sandpaper.
“I’m going to kill you,” Reyna replied, not caring about the teasing one bit. She knew she looked terrible, in a baggy pair of sweats that belonged to Jason (who’d somehow gotten taller than her in the last few years), with her hair barely contained in a bun she’d put absolutely no effort into and bags under her eyes from days without proper sleep. She didn’t care. Thalia was awake.
“There are worse ways to die,” Thalia said, acting like the words were easy even though the scratchiness of her voice made Reyna’s own throat hurt and Thalia immediately started coughing.
A herd of doctors and nurses shuffled in then, cutting off any further conversation. Reyna and Jason sat aside and watched them work, asking Thalia questions, flashing lights in her eyes, taking vital signs, drawing blood. One of the doctors said it was a miracle the damage hadn’t been worse. Thalia would need a lot of physical therapy once her bones had mended, but he didn’t see why she wouldn’t make a full recovery with time and care.
Days flew by and Thalia slowly began to recover, though she slept through most of it, as a person does when they’ve just survived a violent motorcycle accident and the greater part of their body was still broken. Reyna and Jason, finally feeling comfortable enough to leave, took shifts at the hospital to make sure someone would always be there whenever Thalia woke up, but so they could also get some proper rest. Whenever Reyna was the one on duty for Thalia’s wakefulness, they’d exchange a few quips and then Reyna would tell her to shut up and go back to sleep. Every time Thalia smiled and Reyna felt like her heart was going to melt right through her rib cage.
When the doctors agreed to discharge Thalia – and an in home caregiver had been acquired to help with the brunt of Thalia’s needs – Reyna and Jason finally brought her home. Together they got her settled in bed with a TV and plenty of Netflix to get her through until she could walk again. Reyna had been staying in one of the apartment’s many extra rooms when she hadn’t been at the hospital and would remain there for the foreseeable future.
“You could stay here,” Thalia said, when Jason had left the room to go make a few calls to finalize things with the service that was providing Thalia’s caregivers. It was absolutely criminal that a sixteen year old was the one making those calls, but it was the reality they lived in.
Reyna was seated on the edge of her bed. “I am staying here. Those pain killers are really doing a number on you, Thals.”
“I meant in my bed, Rey,” Thalia replied, rolling her eyes. “I meant with me.”
“You shouldn’t be sharing a bed with anyone right now,” Reyna chided, though she was smiling, heart pounding, as those words made all her worries Thalia didn’t still want her go up in smoke.
Thalia looked especially perturbed she still couldn’t move without assistance and significant pain. “I should have always be sharing a bed with you. I never should have stopped.”
Gingerly, careful not to disturb injured limbs, Reyna crawled across the bed and gave Thalia a quick peck on the lips. “I’ll be in the next room until sleeping next to you doesn’t put your life at risk.”
“You’re a tease,” Thalia complained.
“I love you, too,” Reyna said.
Every step of the way Reyna was there, helping Jason get Thalia to doctor’s appointments, making sure Thalia didn’t eat her caregivers alive, and, when Thalia had healed enough that she no longer needed heavy pain medication, very carefully making up for the way she’d left Thalia hanging in the di Angelos’ bathroom the summer before. Probably that had been a reckless thing to do, but chaste kisses and next to no touching had quickly become too much for even Reyna to stand, and she’d missed the rush of watching Thalia come undone.
When the casts came off, Reyna moved back into Thalia’s room to stay.
They broke up again a year and a half later, when Thalia had gotten the all clear from her doctors to return to normal life and the first thing she wanted to do was get back on her bike. It lasted a week. Thalia sold the motorcycle.
They broke up again six months after that, when Reyna suggested, in passing, that they should consider getting married. It lasted a month that time. Reyna agreed not to bring up marriage again.
The last time they broke up was when Thalia opened Club Jupiter and Reyna got insanely, irrationally jealous. Of the club. It was getting too much of Thalia’s attention. That one only lasted a day. From then on Thalia took at least two days a week off and Reyna went with her to help on weekends.
After that final reconciliation, when Thalia had pinned Reyna to their bed and kissed her senseless, before she stripped off the very practical skirt suit Reyna had worn to her very boring office job that day, Thalia looked her in the eye and said, “You can break up with me a thousand times, but we both know where we’ll end up. This bed is where it started. We’ll always find our way back to it.”
Technically it was not the same bed in which Thalia had first kissed Reyna at eleven years old. That bed had been replaced with a bigger one when they were in high school. It was the same room, though, so Reyna decided to let it slide. Not her other objection, though.
“You broke up with me the first time,” Reyna reminded her coolly. Thalia made her pay for that smart remark and Reyna loved every second of it.
Reyna didn’t remember a time in her life before Thalia and, if she had anything to do with it, there would never be a time in her life after Thalia, either.