There was a pause full of warmth and unspoken understanding.
“He’s trying,” she said at last, her tone careful. “He really wants to be better. For you.”
My throat tightened.
“Dare told us about your relationship,” she added quietly. “He told his dad everything.”
I froze—breath, heart, everything. “I… can’t believe he finally said it out loud.” My mind was blown. Literally. If I looked down, I’d see pieces of it scattered across my shoes. “It went… okay?”
I wasn’t worried about myself; it was Dare. His fear of telling his dad, of saying the words out loud, even to himself. Fuck, I should’ve been there for him. What was I doing here?
A smile threaded through her voice. “He acts like he told us something we didn’t already know. He and his dad are fine.”
My heart thudded loudly in my chest.
“He spent twenty minutes talking about you,” she continued. “About how you used to fix his papers, how you watched his practices even when he was being awful. He didn’t have to say more. We’ve always known.”
I blinked hard, fighting the sting in my eyes. “You did?”
“Oh, Tru,” she sighed, soft and fond. “You saw each other, even when you pretended not to. He didn’t out your relationship—he came home and told the truth. There’s a difference. And you know he did it for you.”
I didn’t know how to respond. Because part of me still couldn’t believe Dare had changed. That he would.
But he had.
And now the ground beneath me was shifting, terrifying and hopeful all at once.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“Don’t thank me,” she murmured. “Just don’t give up on him yet. He’s late to the party, but he’s trying like hell to catch up.”
The silence stretched, gentle and full.
Maybe soulmates drift. But the tide always knows how to bring them home.
The rooftop was lit with string lights and the buzz of celebratory joy.
Someone handed me a drink I didn’t remember asking for. I nodded, said thank you, but it sat untouched in my hand. The sky was a dusky lavender shade that made everything look softer than it felt. A DJ spun a lowbeat remix of something I used to love in high school, and people kept coming up to me—tome—grinning and congratulating, saying how theyabsolutely diedat episode sixteen, how they saw themselves in the story, how they were already begging for season two.
I smiled, said thank you again, and meant it—but I also felt distant, like I was watching it all through a window.
Jasper was at the bar, telling some story with his usual dramatic hand gestures, laughter erupting around him. He looked good. Comfortable. He was sweet. He tried. And for a while, I thought—maybe. What if? But I never got past the ghost in my bed.
The ghost with warm brown eyes and a sharp tongue who kissed me like he hated how much he needed it.
I drifted to the edge of the party, letting the breeze hit my face. My cheeks ached from smiling. I should have been happy—truly happy. My art,ourart, was alive in the world. The story that broke me open and birthed my independence had found an audience, and they loved it.
But even with the success, the party, the praise… There was still this loneliness inside me. A Darien-shaped hole nothing could fill. I thought finishing the season might close the wound. Instead, it felt like a flare in the dark.
I rubbed the back of my neck, fingers brushing the spot where Dare used to rest his hand possessively. His hoodie was still in my closet. His name was still in my blood. Most nights, I woke with it half-whispered on my tongue.
I tried not to look for him everywhere. Tried harder not to miss him. But I’d accepted that he’d always be a part of me—a vital organ I couldn’t live without.
And when I turned back toward the party, I suddenly didn’t feel quite so alone. The air shifted. My chest tightened. The ghost I’d been dragging behind me for almost a decade wasn’t a ghost anymore.
Because he was here.
I didn’t register him at first, just a hum beneath my skin, a static charge like the moment before a summer storm. Then my eyes caught on a silhouette at the edge of the rooftop crowd—tall, lean, tension coiled through every line of his body. A quiet gravity pulling at me like a tide.
