She huffs a breath that makes me want to step closer just to hear it again.
I do anyway.
I stop a safe distance away—close enough to talk, far enough not to make this a cage. “I need to apologize,” I say.
A pause. Her eyes narrow. “For what?”
“For the last time.” My throat goes rough on the words. “The last time we really saw each other.”
Her spine stiffens like I touched a bruise. “That’s not necessary.”
“It is.”
“It won’t change anything.”
“It might.”
She faces me fully now, moonlight catching the line of her cheekbone. She looks like a woman who has rebuilt herself with steel and hope and doesn’t appreciate anyone trying to walk through the scaffolding.
I take a breath I don’t feel like I earned.
“I was fresh back,” I say. “I was still… loud inside. Everything felt too close. Too bright. Like one wrong touch would set me off.”
She says nothing.
“I came looking for you because you were the only thing that ever felt like home without a cost.” My voice drops. “And then I heard you.”
Her brows draw together.
“I heard you talking,” I go on. “Out by the trucks. You were telling Sadie or Kaley—I don’t even remember who—that you wanted more than Valor Springs. That you wanted the city, the big job, the whole damn sky.”
Her face flickers.
“Youdidwant that,” I add quickly, because the truth matters even if it stings. “And you deserved it.”
“I can want more than a town and still?—”
“I know.” I lift a hand, stopping her gently. “Now I know.”
Back then, I didn’t.
Back then, all I had were instincts sharpened by grief and a mind that kept replaying a blast that took my best friend and left me breathing when I didn’t know what to do with the privilege of it.
“I didn’t want to be an anchor around your ankle,” I say. “I didn’t want you to look back in ten years and realize you traded half your life because I was too damaged to love you without bleeding on you.”
Her jaw clenches. “So you decided for me.”
The words are quiet.
“I made a call,” I admit. “I thought I was protecting you.”
“You were protecting yourself.” Her voice isn’t cruel, but it’s sharp enough to cut rope. “And maybe I would have left anyway. Maybe Austin was always going to happen. But you don’t get to rewrite our history into some noble sacrifice.”
I feel that truth in my bones. “I’m not trying to be noble,” I say. “I’m trying to be honest.”
“Honest would’ve been saying you were struggling.” Her eyes shine with frustration she refuses to let become tears. “Honest would’ve been letting me choose if I could handle your mess.”
“I didn’t know how to say it.”
