“I don’t need you to say it back.Not yet.Just hold onto it.”
She kisses me instead, tears on her lips, and it’s the most devastatingly beautiful thing I’ve ever felt.
Love isn’t just the soft stuff.
It’s carrying someone’s pain as carefully as their joy.
Jake’s bedroomlight is on when I go upstairs.The glow of his monitor spills through the cracked door.When I walk in, he jumps slightly, eyes bright with anticipation.
“You got the files?”he asks.
And the hope on his face kills me before I even speak.
“No,” I say quietly.
His face falls.
“No?What do you mean no?They?—”
“They were gone.He moved them or destroyed them.We didn’t have time to keep searching.He knew we were coming.”
“Nate, I swear I didn’t tip him off or?—”
Jake’s breath stutters.
I sit on the edge of the bed, and it hits me how bone-deep empty I am.
Not just tired—hollow.
Everything I learned about Nora tonight is still echoing through me, rattling around in my ribs.The files, the floor plans, the missed intel—right now it’s all just… noise.
Static compared to the image of her on that road, bleeding, scared, alone because of him.
“I know,” I say, rubbing a hand over my face.“We’ll figure it out.”
“But I saw them,” Jake insists.“I memorized everything.The entire floor plan.How did he—how thefuckdid he know?”
He’s spiraling.
I can hear it in the way his words start collapsing into each other.Blaming himself while carrying weight that was never his.
“This was supposed to be my shot,” he whispers.“My chance to actually help.And I—fuck—I messed it up.”
“You didn’t.”My voice is rough, frayed.“Scott’s just good at being Scott.He has other ways of knowing things.”
Jake looks away, shoulders sinking, defeated.
And I sit there, barely upright, fighting the urge to put my fist through a wall—or just lie down and let the world fall apart for a minute—because the only thing I can think about is Nora and the truth she finally said out loud.
Everything else can burn.But he deserves the truth.Even if it hurts him as much as it hurts me.
“It was him.”
Jake frowns.“What was?”
“He was the drunk driver on the night of Nora’s accident.”
I watch as Jake’s entire world shatters across his face.
