"I know the difference now." I hold his gaze. "Between someone controlling me because they're scared I'll leave, and someone trusting me to make my own choices. Between love and ownership."
Something in his expression softens.
"You trust me," I say. Not a question. A fact I'm speaking out loud. "Even when you're scared. Even when you want to protect me. You still trust me to know my own mind."
"I do."
"That's the difference," I tell him. "That's how I know this is real. Not because you never worry or never want to protect me, but because you do those things without taking away my agency. Without deciding for me."
He nods slowly.
Gets it.
Gets me.
Gets why this matters—why him leaving hurt but him not trusting me hurt more, and why him coming back and choosing to believe me means everything.
The timer goes off. I pull the terrible garlic bread from the oven, drain the pasta, dump sauce over everything. We eat standing at the counter because we're too tired to pretend we have table manners. It's not good exactly, but it's food, and we're together, and that's enough.
After we eat, after we clean up, after the sun's fully set and the desert's gone dark outside, we end up back on the couch. Natural drift. The comfortable silence that's become our language.
I set my empty beer bottle down. Look at him. Feel the words forming, inevitable and true.
"I forgive you."
Holt goes completely still. Every muscle locked, eyes on me, hope and fear battling across his face in equal measure.
"For leaving. For not talking. For making me feel like I was the problem when I wasn't." I hold his gaze, need him to see how much I mean this. "I forgive you."
His throat works. Voice comes out rough.
"Thank you." His grip tightens. "For giving me another chance. For not giving up on this."
"Thank you for showing up to earn it." I squeeze his hand back. "Thank you for finally talking instead of running."
We sit there, the weight of forgiveness settling between us. Not dramatic. Not some big romantic gesture. Just real. Just me choosing to let go of the hurt, choosing to believe him, choosing to move forward.
My pulse slows in my throat. That knot that's been living there since he walked away finally loosening, finally letting me breathe all the way. Like I've been holding tension I didn't even know was there and now it's gone and I can finally relax.
"I missed you," I say.
"I missed you too."
"Can we just... not do that again?"
His thumb traces circles on the back of my hand, over and over, grounding and gentle. "Yeah. Let's not."
I lean my head on his shoulder. He shifts to accommodate me, arm coming around to hold me against his side. We fit together like this, and I wonder how we almost threw this away. How we almost let fear win when we could've just talked.
But we didn't.
We're here.
We stayed.
We chose each other.
That's what matters.
