Heat floods my cheeks at the memory, his arms around me, the world burning, his voice right at my ear telling me to hold on.I shift, uncomfortable with how good it felt to be held when everything was falling apart.
“I remember something you said,” he adds, voice dropping.Oh, dear God, please don’t let it be...“‘I’m heavy.’”
Kill.Me.Now.Set me back in the house and let it finish the job.
I groan into my hands.“Can we ...can we not?”
“No.”His tone is gentle but unarguable.“We will.”
He waits until I drop my hands again.His gaze is steady, not pitying, not mocking.Just ...present.
“You weren’t heavy,” he says quietly.“And if you were, I’d still have carried you.”
My throat tightens, and my eyes sting for reasons that have nothing to do with smoke.“You say that like it’s obvious,” I mutter.
“It is,” he replies.
“It’s not,” I return automatically.“Ask my ex-husband.”
The words slip out before I can stop them, and the room shifts, like I cracked open a door we were both pretending wasn’t there.
His posture changes.He doesn’t step forward.He doesn’t explode.But his attention sharpens, condenses, and becomes a blade I can feel without ever touching.His voice, when it comes, is soft in the way thunderstorms are soft, quiet before they break something.
“He’s the reason you thought that?”
He’s the reason I thought a lot of things.That my body is too much.That my laughter is too loud.That I should be grateful for any scrap of affection thrown my way, even if it comes wrapped in cruelty.
“That,” I say lightly, because if I don’t joke, I might cry, “and the entire diet industry.”
His jaw flexes.“Did he hurt you?”he asks, and it is not a casual question.It is measured.Controlled.A grenade pin between someone’s teeth.
“Yes,” I whisper, “he did.”
The past plays in ugly flashes, shattered plates, slammed doors, insults slung like knives and then followed by apologies wrapped in roses.The kind of slow-burn violence that’s harder to explain because it doesn’t always leave visible marks.
“And last night?”he asks.“The fire?”
My stomach flips.I look away, stare at some meaningless point on the wall.
“I don’t know yet,” I say honestly.“The investigators will figure it out.”
He watches me like he knows there’s more I’m not saying.“And what do you think?”he presses.
I swallow.“I think,” I murmur, “I didn’t leave the stove on.”
Silence stretches thin between us.
He doesn’t push further, not yet, but something like a promise settles in his eyes.Not empty heroics.Not dramatic declarations.Just a simple certainty that if someone is hunting me with matches, he plans to be in their way.
The oxygen tubing tugs slightly when I inhale too fast.
“This is ridiculous,” I blurt suddenly.“You’re, what, twenty-five?”
“Twenty-three,” he says, unbothered.
Even worse.Or better.Or worse-better.
I wince.“Jesus.You’re a fetus.”
