Horror.
Rage.
And something worse than both: guilt, sudden and violent.
“Meredith,” he breathes. My name sounds like a wound in his mouth. “What the fuck.”
He grips me tighter, not hurting, just…anchoring, like he’s trying to hold me and the past at the same time.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” His voice is hoarse. “Why didn’t you ever—”
“You were a kid,” I say, too fast. Too practiced. I’ve defended that choice so many times I could do it in my sleep. “You were already getting hurt enough. What was I supposed to do? Make you carry that, too?”
His eyes shine, and the sight shocks me because Nick is not a man who looks like he cries. He looks like a man who breaks things and calls it protection.
“I would’ve taken you and run,” he says, voice shaking with the intensity of it. “I would’ve stolen you and never looked back.”
A hysterical sound slips out of me, half laugh, half sob. “With what car, Nicholas? With what money? We were twelve.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he snaps—then catches himself, forcing the word back down like he’s trying not to scare me. His hands come up to cradle the back of my head, forehead pressing to mine. “I should’ve tried,” he whispers. “I should’ve—”
“You were a kid,” I repeat, softer this time. “So was I.”
Our foreheads rest together, breaths mingling. For a long moment, all I hear is the fire and our hearts thudding too loud.
Nick’s fingers curl into the blanket draped over my shoulders, knuckles brushing my thigh—like if he lets go, I’ll vanish.
I hate that it makes my chest ache.
“I watched you,” he says quietly. “Every night.”
I blink. “Why?”
“For proof you were still there.” His voice breaks on the last word. “That you made it through another day.”
Something inside me cracks in a place I’ve kept sealed for years.
I stare at him—at the man he is now, at the boy still trapped behind his eyes—and I feel it: the terrible, magnetic pull of familiarity.
The dangerous comfort of being known.
I don’t mean to move closer.
I don’t mean to tilt my face that last inch.
But I do.
His breath hitches. His gaze drops to my mouth. My fingers are still tangled in his shirt, my legs on either side of his hips, my body pressed full-length against his.
“This is a bad idea,” he whispers and I know he's holding back.
“Probably,” I agree, voice rough.
His hand cups my jaw, thumb brushing my lower lip. “Do you want to stop?”
My throat works. I should say yes. I should shove him away, scream that he’s insane, that none of this erases the fact that I woke up zip-tied in a cabin.
What comes out is, “I don’t know.”
