He tilted his head slightly, studying me with those penetrating blue eyes. “You think I don’t see it? The way you use that perfect smile to cover your fear?” His voice grew quieter, more vulnerable. “I lived with a smile like that most of my life.”
My breath caught. In all our years of knowing each other, Axel had never offered me more than a hint at whatever haunted his past. But here he was, sharing something raw and real and seeing me in a way that no one ever had before.
“When I first started posting, I noticed the edited ones got more engagement.” I shrugged.
Axel studied me for five long seconds. “It was more than that.”
Heat flooded my cheeks. How did he see through me so easily? It was like he had X-ray vision, straight to my soul.
I stared into my wine, watching the liquid swirl, like the truth I’d never told anyone that circled around my heart. Not even Scarlett knew this part. Hell, it had taken me years to figure it out myself because my perfectionism had manifested into other things long before social media came around.
After a generous gulp of liquid courage, I confessed something I’d kept buried.
“I guess … after I started building my account, I fell in love with having this online alter ego. I could control everything. My image, my story, the lighting that made me look flawless. Everything.”
“You liked the control.” It wasn’t a question.
“God, yes.” I nodded, feeling lighter already. “It was intoxicating. I could paint this picture of a perfect life because inside, my real life felt completely broken.”
“Because of Knox.” Another statement, delivered with surprising gentleness.
“Before Knox was arrested, my life felt … safe. Predictable. Like each year was a domino falling into the next one, pushing me toward some predetermined happy ending.” I smiled, but there was no humor in it. Just painful nostalgia. “After his arrest, it was like someone grabbed the game board and hurled it at the wall. Those dominoes flew everywhere.”
Axel studied me, giving me the space to gather my thoughts and continue.
“After his conviction, I became obsessed with organizing things. My closet, every drawer, every cabinet. When I ranout of physical spaces to control, I put that into school, work, and eventually, I moved online. Same perfectionism, different platform.”
“Dakota …” His voice was rough.
“But it wasn’t just the organization thing.” I was on a roll now, years of suppressed truth spilling out. “After Knox was convicted, we lost family friends. I lost friends too. They didn’t say it outright, but they stopped coming around. And when we’d bump into them at the grocery store or whatever, you could see it in their eyes. They looked at us differently. All of us. Like we were these imperfections staining the world.”
I paused, remembering those looks. The way conversations would die when we walked into a room.
“I wish I could say it didn’t mess with my head, but it did. For a while, I felt”—I searched for the right word—“dirty. Like I needed to scrub myself clean, but couldn’t reach the stain.”
He took a sip of his drink, looking part furious at those people for making me feel this way, but part enthralled, learning everything that made me tick. “So, you created a perfect online persona because you thought that was what people wanted to see.”
“I figured if I wasn’t perfect, I’d be cast aside. Again.” I met his eyes, surprised by the fierce protectiveness I saw there. “I know logically that wasn’t true, but feelings don’t always listen to logic.”
“Knox’s actions have nothing to do with you or your family.” The steel in his voice meant everything to me.
“It got worse when my parents started struggling financially. More people disappeared from our lives. It was like we were only worthy of love when everything was perfect. So, I decided to give people what they wanted to see.” I took a shaky breath, surprised by how raw this felt. “I loved that control. I could edit out the days I spent crying and only show the ones where I wassmiling. I could crop out the vacation disasters and only post the postcard-worthy moments. It became my way of creating the version of myself I wanted to be while editing out the parts I wanted to erase.”
My eyes burned, but I blinked the tears back.
“And people responded to that,” Axel realized, his voice soft. “Which reinforced the idea that you had to be perfect to be loved.”
Well, damn.“I’d never thought about it like that before.”
“You’re wrong, Dakota.” He set down his glass so he could focus all his attention on me. His gaze traveled down my body, then back to my face, searching my eyes to make sure I was paying attention to every word he said. “The real you is the perfect you. The real you is the one I want to see. I want to see your mistakes. I want to see you fall down and get back up. Hell, if accidentally posting that photo of me counts as a mistake, then I’m grateful for it. Because without that ‘mistake,’ I wouldn’t be sitting here, having this conversation with you.”
Holy hell. It felt like a barbed wire that had been wrapped around my heart broke free and my heart beat fully for the first time since Knox’s arrest.
“You say that like you’re actually happy I posted that image,” I teased.
“What if I am?” He leaned closer, throwing his arm behind the sofa. “Because it forced us to spend time together when we normally would have avoided each other like the plague.”
Axel unleashed the full power of his gaze on me, and I swore I could feel the distance between us collapsing, gravity bending around him like he had his own pull. Heat spread from my heart to places that had no business warming up during an impromptu therapy session.
