If I fell apart after that, if they said what they had to say, if Belle turned away—then I would have at least done the honest thing.For once.
I let my eyes find her through the haze of stares and murmurs.Belle.She stood rooted at the far end of the hall, shoulders drawn tight.My throat worked, and before I could talk myself out of it, I let the words come rough and unvarnished.
“Belle,” I said, voice carrying louder than I intended.“You deserved honesty.You deserved better than half-truths and shadows.If I drove you away by telling this now, at least you’ll finally know the truth.And maybe I’ll have done one right thing in this life.”
The words hung in the air, heavy as lead.The crowd shifted, restless in the silence I left behind.I could feel the heat of whispers crawling at the edges—some sharp with judgment, some softer with sympathy, others pitying.None of it mattered.Not anymore.
I didn’t let my eyes stray.I kept them on her.
Her eyes shone with tears, glassy in the golden light of the garlands.She didn’t look away.Didn’t recoil, didn’t turn her back the way I’d braced myself for.She just… held me there, steady as a lighthouse in a storm.
The noise of the crowd faded into a dull hum.For me, the whole world narrowed to the girl who’d walked into my fortress of shadows and dared to call it home.Whatever came next—condemnation, exile, mercy—I knew this moment mattered more than all the years I’d wasted hiding.
I stood there, coat dusted with snow, heart bared, waiting on her answer.
I set my hand on the rough wood of the crate, the weight of it steady under my palm.My voice came out low, but it carried through the library all the same.
“These don’t belong to me anymore,” I said.“They belong to this town.To its history.To its future.”
Then I pushed the crate forward, the scrape of it across the floor loud enough to echo.It wasn’t just a box of old books.It was every ghost I’d clung to, every memory I’d hoarded like it could keep me safe.Moving it was the closest thing to surrender I’d ever managed.A symbolic act, maybe, but it was mine.
For the first time in years, I breathed without armor.No shield, no walls—just the raw, unguarded truth pressing in on all sides.
I didn’t know if Belle would forgive me.I didn’t know if the town would ever see me as anything but the scarred recluse who haunted the edge of Holly Ridge.Maybe they wouldn’t.Maybe they’d go right back to their whispers the second I left this room.
But as I stood there, chest heaving, the crate no longer mine, I felt something I hadn’t in decades.I felt free.
Chapter19
Belle
The library felt like it was holding its breath.The garlands glowed softly overhead, but all the sparkle and cheer in the room dimmed against the silence that followed Charlie’s words.My heart was pounding so hard I thought it might echo, not with humiliation like I might have feared—but with awe.He’d done it.He’d stood in front of everyone who had whispered about him for years and stripped himself bare, not just for the town, but for me.For the truth.
I couldn’t take my eyes off him.His broad shoulders were squared, but I saw the tremor in his scarred hands where they gripped the edge of a crate, the way his jaw worked tight as though he was bracing for the blow of rejection.He looked like a man preparing to be condemned, to be cast out again.My chest ached at the sight.
For so long, I’d carried this picture of him painted by rumors—dangerous, bitter, unreachable.But standing there in the golden glow, every jagged line of him taut with vulnerability, I realized the truth.He wasn’t my enemy.He never had been.He was the one who’d been left behind.The one who had carried the betrayal in silence while the rest of the world painted him a monster.
And now, here he was, offering the very thing he’d clung to all these years—the library, his ghosts, his memories—not as a burden, but as a gift.A release.A truth that had cost him everything.
My throat tightened, tears stinging hot at the corners of my eyes.He thought this confession would drive me away, but all it did was draw me closer.Because I could finally see him—not just the scars or the gruffness, but the man who had been hurting, the man who had tried to protect me in the only broken way he knew how.
In that suspended silence, while the town whispered and shifted, all I wanted to do was cross the room, take his hand, and let him know he wasn’t alone anymore.
The silence in the library pressed down around me, but inside, my thoughts were anything but still.I kept replaying everything—the burned letters; the betrayal threaded through them, the weight of years spent believing a lie.I had been so sure the truth would crush me.And in a way, it had.But now, standing here with Charlie’s confession hanging in the air, it shifted into something else.
For so long, I’d looked at him and seen a wall of guilt.The scars on his face, the bitterness in his voice, the distance he kept from everyone—it had all seemed like proof that he was unreachable.A fortress built from anger and regret.But in this moment, I saw it differently.The walls weren’t made of cruelty; they were made of sorrow.He’d carried burdens that weren’t his to bear, and he had borne them alone for far too long.
It hit me with a clarity so sharp it stole my breath.Like church bells pealing through frosted Christmas air, cutting through everything else.He wasn’t the villain in this story.He wasn’t the cautionary tale the town whispered about.He was the one who’d been abandoned.The one who’d lost his wife, his friend, his place in this community—and carried the blame for all of it as if it had been his sin alone.
My chest swelled with something fierce and unshakable.Compassion, yes, but more than that: determination.Because if there was one thing I knew now, it was that Charlie didn’t need my pity.He needed someone to stand beside him, to look past the scars and the shadows and see the man underneath.
He needed choosing.
And as I looked at him—standing tall but trembling, eyes haunted but unflinching—I knew.That someone was me.
The moment stretched thin as glass, every sound in the library muffled under the weight of Charlie’s confession.My feet felt heavy, but some force deeper than fear moved me forward.Slowly, I stepped through the crowd.People shifted back instinctively, parting as though the aisle between us was meant to be carved.Murmurs rippled around me, then fell into stunned silence as I kept walking, my gaze never leaving his.
Charlie looked at me like a man bracing for the gallows.His eyes—so guarded, so fierce—held something raw and desperate beneath them.A silent plea that screamed louder than words:Hate me.Leave me.Set me free.
