She cleared her throat. “Well. That was... a lot.”
I nodded once.
“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop.”
“S’fine.”
She hesitated again. “You okay?”
The words hit harder than I expected. I wasn’t sure anyone had asked me that — really asked — in a long time.
I looked away. Let out a breath. “Yeah. Just… embarrassed, I guess.”
“Why?”
“Wish you hadn’t heard that, mostly.” I gave a small, humorless laugh. “Kinda hard to look at you, this wonderful, perfect woman, and know that the role that brought me back to you… the director says you weren’t even histhirdchoice.”
“Jesus, Ansel.”
“He said it, not me.”
She crossed to me then — slowly, barefoot and blanket-wrapped and wide-eyed — and reached out like she wasn’t sure if she was allowed to touch me.
“I don’t care about your résumé,” she said. “I care that you’re here. That you’reyou.”
I glanced down at her. “Maybe he’s right about you, too. Maybe this whole thing started with a mistake.”
Her face twitched. Hurt flickered. But I kept going — voice soft, not bitter. “More accurately… maybe the mistake wasme.Letting you walk away from me in that musty convention hall half a year ago was the mistake. Maybe I should have fought for you themomentI laid my eyes on you. My favorite drunken mess.”
She blinked fast. Her hands curled around my wrists.
“You didn’t have to say anything back there,” she said. “You could’ve let him talk. Let him believe whatever he wanted. And instead…”
“God… You heard that?”
“I heard all of it,” she whispered.
I took a breath, finally. Let my hands drop to her waist. Let my forehead fall to hers. She didn’t try to make it lighter this time.Didn’t deflect. She just stood there, close, quiet, her fingers curling into the front of my shirt like she’d never wanted to let go.
And for the first time that morning — maybe all year — I let myself feel it. Theache. Thefury. The slow, bone-deep terror that I had nothing left to prove — and still, somehow, nothing to show for it.
Her fingers tightened in my shirt. Not pulling me closer. Just holding on. Like maybesheneeded a second, too.
I wrapped my arms around her — slow, careful — and buried my face in her hair. She didn’t speak. Didn’t flinch.
She just leaned into me, and I cracked.
Not loud. Not all at once. But enough that my breath caught in my throat. Enough that my arms pulled her tighter. Enough that my eyes stung and my shoulders shook and I felt… tired. Deep-down tired. The kind that sleep didn’t fix.
She rubbed slow circles between my shoulder blades.
“I’m sorry,” I muttered.
“Don’t,” she said instantly. “Don’t apologize for that.”
I nodded against her. “I just — he said?—”
“I know.”
