God. It wrecks me. Shatters me more than the blast, more than the shrapnel still burning in my ribs because she’s right. I did leave. I always fucking leave.
But right now—her hands are on mine, her eyes are on me, her voice is breaking and still calling me back and I can’t look away.
Not this time.
Not ever again.
Her voice doesn’t stop.
It pours. Quiet. Shaking. Breaking.
Like she’s been holding a dam inside her chest and the cracks finally split the whole thing open.
“I sat there all night,” she whispers, her thumb stroking my knuckles like I’ll vanish if she lets go. “Watching the numbers on those monitors, begging them not to drop. Begging you not to leave me again.”
My throat works, but nothing comes. The tube’s still there. My lungs drag air shallow and ragged, like they don’t trust me to keep going.
Her hair falls against my cheek when she leans closer, and fuck, I can smell her. Soap. Sand. Salt from her tears. It’s like being punched in the chest, the way my body remembers her before my brain catches up.
“I hate you,” she says next, her voice splintering. “I hate you for leaving me in that kitchen. For walking away like I didn’t matter. For breaking me so many times I don’t even know who I am without you.”
Her tears drip hot onto my skin.
My hand twitches. Useless. Weak.
Her grip only tightens.
“But I love you more,” she chokes. “And that’s the part I can’t survive. Because even when you’re cruel, even when you’re drunk, even when you rip me open—I still love you. And it terrifies me more than this war ever could.” Her forehead presses to the back of my hand. Her shoulders shake. “I can’t lose you, Dax,” she breathes. “Not like this. Not to them. Not to the silence. Not when I just got you back.”
My chest seizes. Not from pain this time. From her. From every raw word cutting through the fog I’ve been drowning in.
I try to move. Try to lift my hand. My body answers with the weakest twitch, a scrape of nails against her palm.
Her head snaps up. Her eyes find mine and for the first time since the blast, the dark pulls back just enough for me to see her clearly—every tear, every crack, every piece of her breaking over me.
I let it wreck me because if I could speak, I’d tell her that she’s wrong. That I never stopped. That I can’t fucking breathe without her.
But I can’t.
Not yet.
So I just hold her eyes, fragile as glass, and pray she hears all of it anyway. Her words keep spilling. Like she’s scared if she stops, I’ll slip right back into the dark.
“You think you ruined me?” Her voice is sharp and broken all at once, shaking like the rest of her. “You did. God, you did. But you’re also the only thing that’s ever made me feel alive. Do you hear me, Dax? Do you hear me?”
Her hands shake against mine. Her nails bite the back of my knuckles just to prove I’m still real.
“I can’t breathe when you’re gone. I can’t fucking breathe,” she whispers, tears sliding down, hot against my skin. “I’ve tried. I tried to hate you. I tried to let you go. But you’re under my skin,in my veins, in every breath I take—and if you die here, if you leave me in this place, then you take me with you.”
The monitor answers her with its steady beep, like it knows she needs proof I’m still tethered.
Beep.
Beep.
Alive.
I want to tell her I hear every word. That I’ve been trying to claw my way back to them, back to her, through smoke and blood and ghosts. But my mouth won’t work. My chest won’t obey.
