Tru didn’t speak.
“I don’t know how to fix what I broke,” I said, voice barely a whisper. “But I want to try.”
He looked at me then, really looked. “This is a terrible fort,” he said, lips trembling from cold and emotion.
“I know,” I said, heart racing. “But it’s ours.”
My gaze drifted past him, past the box in his lap, to the support post at the back—splintered, weather-grayed, and scarred with age. The old sharpie was still there.
TRU + DARE = Forever
inside a wobbly, lopsided heart.
A diagonal slash cut through it, dark once, now a barely there bruise in the wood. The rain and sun had chewed at the ink, but that angry, deliberate strike had held on better than the rest. Like the ruin lasted longer than the promise.
Something stabbed hot and sharp in my chest. I wanted to take it back, to scrub out that ugly black line and redraw the heart, but I didn’t. I didn’t deserve fresh ink. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
All I could do was stare at it, knowing I was the one who ruined it. I ruined us.
Tru crouched in front of the box, but his eyes flicked to mine. He didn’t say anything; he didn't have to. He saw me looking at it, and he knew.
I was such a liar.
I brought him here to give him something, but all I could see was everything I took away.
Now, looking at that crossed-out heart, I felt twelve and fourteen and seventeen all at once—every version of me that chose silence over him clustered in my throat, choking me.
You did that.
You let him think he was alone in it.
You made him carry the weight of your denial.
Tru followed my stare, eyes softening when he found the mark. “I thought it would’ve faded more,” he whispered.
It should have,I almost said. Instead, I shoved my hands deeper into my pockets to hide the shake and forced a thin smile. “Guess some things are stubborn.”
What I meant was:I wish I hadn’t let you stand here and hurt alone.
What I meant was:I still want you.
What I meant was nothing that would come out clean.
He turned back to the box, and I kept looking at the scar on the wood until my chest hurt enough to feel like penance. That box wasn’t big enough to hold all of my apologies.
Lauren texted again.
Hey stranger. Home for a few more days. Wanna catch up? Just talk. Promise.
Then, a few minutes later:
Thought of you when I saw the snow. Remember freshman year?
I locked my phone without replying.
She’d been texting since the first day of break. Friendly stuff at first. Vague, nostalgia-baiting messages. Then the subtle lures. Promises to keep it casual. Like she didn’t use to cry when Ipulled away and ask me, over and over, what she’d done wrong when the truth was, it was never her.
I hadn’t told Tru. Not because I was hiding it. More like... I didn’t want to ruin what we had by dragging the past into it. But secrets sat like cinder blocks in my gut, and I guess he could tell.
