I reached for him, fingers brushing his arm. “You didn’t deserve that.”
He looked at me then, really looked. “No one does. But I learned early that love isn’t always gentle. Sometimes it’s survival disguised as affection. That’s why I notice things. Why I listen. Why I see what others don’t.”
His voice dropped, softer now. “You learn a lot from pain. You learn how to never make someone else feel it.”
We kept walking after that.
Through the open markets, along the marina, over the hill where the grass rolled toward the sea. He bought me ice cream, laughed when I smeared it on my nose, and called me “Peach” again. We lay on the hill and talked about everything and nothing, my magazine article, how I have always wanted my own publishing house, my parents, how I used to dream about writing in an old villa by the sea. He told me about his nana the one who raised him after his mother died. The one who believed he was good even when the world told him he wasn’t. “She used to say, ‘Listen with your soul, boy. People will tell you who they are if you’re quiet enough.’ He smiled. “She was the reason I didn’t become like them.”
By the time the sun began to sink, we were quiet. The sky bled gold and rose over the water, and I rested my head on his shoulder. He pressed a kiss to my temple soft, reverent, healing.
“Feels like being young again,” I whispered. He smiled against my hair. “No, Peach. Feels like finally being alive.”
The city lights flickered on below us. For the first time in years, I wasn’t thinking about Blake, or the wreckage, or what I’d lost. Just this his hand in mine, his voice low in my ear, the promise of something that didn’t hurt.
And maybe, just maybe, that was enough.
Dane walked me home, even though his car sat parked outside the café. We held hands like we had no right to—slow, unhurried, lingering in the soft glow of empty storefronts. We window-shopped like teenagers high on something tender and fleeting, the kind of sweetness you don’t realise you’re starving for until it’s already in your mouth.
At my doorstep, he kissed my cheek, just a breath of a kiss and left me standing there wrapped in the warmth of him, the ghost of his lips, the safety I’d forgotten existed.
After he disappeared into the darkness, I cleaned my house for the first time in weeks. Not the tidy kind of cleaning the frantic, grief-drunk kind. The kind where you’re scared of what you’ll see if you stop moving.
I’d let the place collapse around me while I danced with heartbreak in the dark. Our home, once scented with lilies and sunlight, had sunk into shadows, the air heavy with wilting purple irises and memories I couldn’t bear to touch.
Glass of red in hand, I grabbed my laptop and the phone I hadn’t dared turn on since Dane took it from me. Outside, the porch fairy lights stirred in the wind, scattering soft golden orbs against the whitewashed walls. I tucked my knees into mychest, pulled the shawl tight around my shoulders, and inhaled a breath I didn’t realise I’d been starving for.
Then I turned the phone on.
It vibrated violently — like something possessed, something furious at being abandoned.
I answered Carrie’s messages first, assuring her I was safe, alive, not curled on the kitchen tiles, drowning in tears.
Then Dane.
A photo.
He’s lying in bed, shirtless, face buried in white pillows, the soft curve of his mouth barely visible.
“My bed sheets smell like you.”
My smile was immediate. Reflexive. Helpless.
I typed:
“And what does that smell like?”
His reply was instant.
“Promises and a forever. Mixed with my body wash and whispers in the dark.”
Heat curled through me, soft at first, then sharp.
His words settled inside me like warmth on a cold night a place to rest, if only I knew how.
“You have a way with words, Mr… shit, I don’t even know your last name. But your words pull me in and hold me there. They make me feel things. They remind me that language has bones.”
I barely had time to bask in that feeling before the dating app notifications began popping up an avalanche I wasn’t ready for.
