I pace because if I stay still, I’ll explode.Gravel crunches under my feet.My hands tremble.My nails dig crescents into my palms.But then I look at her—kneeling in the same gravel she almost died in—and the violence slams into a wall made of her.
I kneel beside her because towering over her like this, I can’t do that to her.My hands cup her face gently—gentler than I feel.
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
She closes her eyes.
“I was scared.”
“Of what?”
“You.”She breathes out.“I was scared of what you’d do to him.Of losing you again and I couldn’t lose you to him again.I couldn’t Nate.I’m sorry.”
And that breaks me because she was protecting me—from myself—while she carried this alone.
Her tears fall and I pull her into me.Hold her like she might slip through my fingers if I don’t keep a tight enough grip.
“You have nothing to apologize for,” I whisper into her hair.“Nothing, you hear me?”
She pulls back, voice trembling.
“What are you going to do now that you know?”
The truth flashes through my mind:
Kill him.
Slowly.
Beautifully.
But I swallow it like poison.
“He’s not getting away with it,” I say.“But we’re taking him down the right way.I’m not becoming what he wants me to be.”
The drive home is quiet, but softer and less suffocating.
Our hands stay linked over the console.Her thumb brushes mine every now and then like she’s checking I’m still here.
When we get to the porch, I pull her in and kiss her like I’m starved for her.Because I am.
She pulls back, breathless.
“What was that for?”
“For being the bravest person I know.”
“I don’t feel brave.”
I tilt her chin up.
“I love you.”
Her eyes widen like I’ve ripped open the sky.
“I fell in love with you because of a million tiny things you never saw yourself doing,” I tell her.“But brave—that’s one thing I’ve always known you were.”
I kiss her again, and when she starts to speak, I stop her.
