Silence.
My tongue feels thick.
“That was… more than one patch note,” I mutter.
She doesn’t say anything.
I risk a glance up.
Her eyes are bright. Not crying, exactly. Just… full.
“Knight,” she says slowly, “do you really think the way I see you is that shallow?”
“I think you fell for an idea,” I say. “And I don’t know how to live up to it.”
She sets the notebook down.
Gets up.
Walks around the table to stand in front of me.
I freeze.
She reaches up and pokes a finger into my chest, right above my heart.
“Newsflash, dumbass,” she says, voice shaking just a little. “I don’t like you because you look cool in a hoodie and can yell at routers until they behave. I like you because you showed up. Over and over. For my brother. For me. For people who didn’t even know you were saving them.”
She pokes again, harder.
“I like you because you taught me how to check for backdoors in my own life,” she continues. “Because you made sure our Wi-Fi at home was locked down after my ex got weird. Because you watched my socials for creeps even when I didn’t ask you to.”
I swallow.
Her voice drops. “I like you because you listened to me talk about some stupid indie game for two hours and pretended to care,” she says. “Because you made me grilled cheese when Ifailed my driver’s test. Because you never once told me I was too much, even when I knew I was.”
I feel like my ribcage is too small.
She takes a deep breath. “And now,” she says firmly, “Iloveyou because you’re sitting in a murder cabin, teaching me how to break a grown man’s nose, trying to pretend you’re not scared for me. Because you’re willing to tell me the worst things you’ve done and let me stay anyway.”
My heart stutters.
She said love.
She said it like it’s just a fact, like the weather, like gravity.
“It’s not a pedestal,” she finishes. “It’s a chair. Sit in it or don’t, but I’m not writing you as some flawless hero in my head. I like you messy. I like you real. I like youexactly like this.”
I don’t have a script for this.
No quip.
No deflection.
Just a rising tide of something warm and thoroughly terrifying.
“You get one question,” I manage.
She smiles, small and sure.
