“I’m not planning anything,” I lie, because the truth is too messy to hold. “I was just…looking.”
His jaw flexes. He places my phone gently on the dresser, as if afraid it will shatter.
Then he closes the distance between us and takes my face in both hands, eyes burning with too much emotion for me to name.
“I won’t lose you,” he murmurs, voice raw. But there’s also a threat in there. The words he doesn’t speak out loud.
And I’ll do perfectly deranged things to make sure I don’t.
Something inside me stumbles.
Because I’m beginning to feel the same way.
And that terrifies me more than anything else.
That night,while Zane is in the driveway helping my uncle fix the flickering carport light — which really means my uncle is handing him tools while Zane does ninety-eight percent of the actual work — my mom quietly hooks her arm through mine and guides me out onto the porch.
The boards creak under us, familiar and worn, and the cool Oregon air wraps around my skin in a way that almost makes me feel seventeen again.
She turns to me with that steady, perceptive look mothers get when they’ve already pieced together the entire emotional puzzle you’re still struggling to hold upright.
There’s no judgment in her eyes, just a soft, sad sort of understanding.
“You love him,” she says, not as a guess, but as a certainty she arrived at days ago.
I stare down at the peeling paint on the porch railing, the one I used to chip at with my nails when I was anxious as a kid.
“I’m afraid I do,” I admit, the words spilling out in a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding.
She squeezes my hand gently, thumb brushing over my knuckles in that comforting, grounding way she’s done my whole life.
“I’d love nothing more than for you to come back home and your cousin said you asked about realtors?”
God, does everyone know I had a moment of complete wobble and considered buying a house in Oregon?
“But I don’t think you should make any big decisions yet, sweetheart. Zane said you’re heading to Europe next week?”
I nod.
“Then wait. You’ve been going full steam ahead since you met him. Give yourself space to see the whole picture.”
I inhale slowly, feeling the air sit heavy in my chest. “I know. You’re right. I’m trying. I’m just…thinking,” I murmur, though the truth is I’ve been overthinking so much my brain feels like an overworked blender.
She nods with a small smile, patient and wise in a way that makes me feel both comforted and exposed.
“Think all you need to,” she says softly. “But don’t let fear be the one deciding things. Fear doesn’t care about what you want. It only cares about keeping you exactly where you are.”
A knot forms in my throat.
Fear and longing swirl in me, tangled so tightly I don’t know where one begins and the other ends.
Every time I close my eyes, I see Zane’s hands on me, his chest rising against mine as he holds me through the night, his voice cracking open something raw every time he tells me I calm him, I center him, I steady him.
But beneath all that tenderness, there are jagged edges too — wicked sharp flashes of possessiveness and control that scare me in the same breath they thrill me.
From the yard, Zane’s laugh rings out low, rough and unmistakably him, and the sound sinks into my skin before my brain can stop it. I feel pulled toward him even from here, like something in me recognizes something in him on a level I don’t have words for yet.
My mom follows the direction of my gaze and her lips curve into a small, knowing smile. “You’ll figure it out, sweetheart,” she murmurs. “Just don’t rush toward something big…or away from it.”
