“My chest burned like I couldn’t get air. I kept seeing her flinch, and I knew I was the one who caused it. I’ve taken hits that knocked me flat. I’ve been benched. Booed. But nothing—not a single goddamn thing—has ever felt as bad as watching her brace herself against something I started.”
My throat burns, hot and humiliating. “I neverwanted to hurt her. Ever. That’s the one thing I swore I’d never do, and I did. Worse than anyone else could’ve.”
The confession hangs in the room like smoke, and I’m choking on it.
“Kyle,” Dr. Shah says gently, “did you hurt her… or did the situation hurt her? Those are not the same.”
“Feels the same,” I whisper.
“Tell me about the fake dating situation.”
“Oh, yeah.” I choke out a laugh. “Apparently, the only way to salvage the mess I created is for the two of us to pretend we’re together.”
Dr. Shah doesn’t react, just waits patiently the way she always does when she knows I’m circling the real wound. “And how did you react to that idea?”
“How do you think?” My voice turns raw. “I’m already halfway in love with her.”
The words leave me like something torn loose. She doesn’t flinch or correct me. She just holds the space like she’s steadying it for me, as if she knows I’m one wrong breath away from falling apart.
“And now I have to pretend it’s just a PR stunt and that every time she looks at me, I don’t feel it in my fucking bones.”
“And what do you feel when she looks at you?”
My voice is barely there. “Home.”
“And when she avoids looking at you?”
“Like she’s ripping the floor out from under me.”
My hands curl against my knees, knucklesaching. She has no idea that every avoided glance feels like a bruise blooming under my ribs.
Dr. Shah sits forward slightly, not enough to intimidate, but enough to anchor. “Three days of distance,” she murmurs. “That sounds difficult.”
“It’s been torture,” I admit, the word shaking loose from somewhere low and hollow inside me. “She walks past me like I’m no one. Like I didn’t hold her in my arms and feel her shake when I kissed her. I feel it every time she pretends I don’t matter.”
“And what does your body do when that happens?”
“Clenches like I’m shrinking into myself. Everything in me folds inward so it doesn’t spill out. “Like I’m sixteen again and being told not to want things I can’t have.”
Something in my chest twists, deeper than the rest. “I guess that makes sense,” I mutter. “I never really had a dad to tell me otherwise.”
The words come out small, almost an afterthought, but they crack something open. “He died before I was old enough to remember him. Everything I know about him is from stories or from my brothers and my mom. It’s like pieces of someone I never actually got to meet.”
I rub a thumb over my knee, grounding myself. “My brothers became… I don’t know. Stand-ins. Versions of the dad I didn’t have. Cooper pushing me because someone had to. Beau keeping everyone steady. Cole making sure I never felt alone.”
A breath shivers loose. “When I mess up, disappointing Cooper feels bigger. When Beau hid how sickhe was, it felt like he disappeared. And when Cole cut us off for a while… it felt like losing something I didn’t know how to get back.”
I blink fast, trying to steady the shake in my hands, but it’s useless.
“Kyle,” she says, voice quieter now, “what do you want?”
The question is a punch straight to the sternum. Something inside me buckles.
“I want her. Not for show or because this PR bullshit that makes us look like a highlight reel.” My pulse hammers as the truth spills out, too big to hold in. “I want the way she looked at me before she remembered she wasn’t supposed to.”
The want in me is so sharp it borders on ache. I grip the couch cushion like it’s the only thing keeping me grounded.
“And what scares you?”
