\u201cYou could have died,\u201d Orion said, and his voice was tight. \u201cActually died, not just almost.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI know,\u201d I said. \u201cBut I also knew my alpha healing would probably keep me alive long enough for her to figure it out. And even if it didn\u2019t, even if I was wrong, at least she would have had the chance to try.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Orion stared at me for a long moment. \u201cYou really love her.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cMore than anything,\u201d I said simply.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He nodded slowly, then reached out and pulled me into another hug, this one longer than the first. \u201cThank you,\u201d he said quietly. \u201cFor loving my sister enough to die for her. For believing in her when she couldn\u2019t believe in herself.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019d do the same for me,\u201d I said, and I knew it was true.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When he pulled back, there were tears in his eyes. \u201cShe\u2019s lucky to have you.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m the lucky one,\u201d I told him, and I meant it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYes you are\u201d he said making us laugh.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know what?\u201d he said. \u201cAfter everything she\u2019s been through, after all the fear and pain and uncertainty, she deserves something good. Something to remind her that her life isn\u2019t just about surviving anymore, that she has people who love her and are proud of her.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat are you thinking?\u201d I asked, curious.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cA surprise,\u201d he said. \u201cNothing big or crazy, just something to show her how much we all care about her, how proud we are of what she accomplished today.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
I felt a smile spreading across my face. \u201cI like it. What did you have in mind?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
We spent the next hour planning, our voices low so we wouldn\u2019t wake Athena upstairs. Sarah joined us after a while, and then Derek too, and we all passed ideas back and forth until we had something that felt right.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t complicated or expensive because it didn\u2019t need to be. It just needed to be real and from the heart, needed to show Athena that she wasn\u2019t alone and never would be again.\u00a0<\/p>\n
By the time we finished planning, the sun had set outside, I felt good, felt excited about tomorrow and what it would bring.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I went back upstairs to check on Athena and found her exactly where I\u2019d left her, curled up on her side with her hand stretched out like she was reaching for me in her sleep.\u00a0<\/p>\n
1\/2\u00a0<\/p>\n
15:01 Wed, Jan 14 \u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chapter 226\u00a0<\/p>\n
I changed out of my blood\u2013stained shirt and climbed into bed next to her, taking her hand in mine.\u00a0<\/p>\n
(94)\u00a0<\/p>\n
She stirred slightly and mumbled something I couldn\u2019t make out, but she didn\u2019t wake up. Her fingers tightened around mine and she\u00a0<\/p>\n
settled back into sleep.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I lay there in the dark and thought about everything that had happened. About how I\u2019d been willing to die to give her this chance, about how she\u2019d not only saved me but healed me completely, about how proud I was of her for facing her fears and coming out the other\u00a0<\/p>\n
side stronger.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tomorrow we\u2019d celebrate. Tomorrow we\u2019d show her what she meant to all of us. Tomorrow we\u2019d start figuring out what came next and how to help her master this incredible gift she\u2019d been given.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But tonight, I just held her hand and breathed and thanked whatever forces in the universe had brought us both through this alive.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Because that\u2019s what this was, a second chance at life, at love, at everything. And I wasn\u2019t going to waste a single moment of it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Memories Drifted Into Soft Silence by Kyx Frost 226 \u201cYou could have died,\u201d Orion said, and his voice was tight. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-second-gear-of-love-novel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26383\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}