“I never said I didn’t want you,” my voice was barely above a whisper.
“But you never said you did.”
The silence between us was a bomb. Seconds ticked by. Heat was rising.
I stepped forward, desperate. “You think this—watching you laugh like I don’t exist, watching you disappear into the dark with her—you think this isme not wanting you?”
“Yes!” he screamed. His hands shook. “Because it’s easier to believe that than to keep living in this fucked-up purgatory where you look at me like I’m everything but call me nothing.”
“I don’t know how to do this!” I shouted. “I don’t know how to want someone out loud when I was raised to keep everything that mattershidden.”
“I’m not a secret, Theo.” His voice dropped. Quiet. Shattering. “I’m not your shame.”
“Iknowthat.” I stepped into his space, trembling, lips brushing the shell of his ear. “But I’m terrified. Of what I feel. Of how much of me you hold in your hands.”
He didn’t move. Didn’t blink. “I’m already broken, Theo. You don’t get to be scared when you’re the one holding the hammer.”
I reached for him then, hand shaking as I cupped his face. He flinched—but didn’t pull away. “I’m not good with words,” I said, broken and breathless. “But if it matters—if you still believe in anything I say—I would burn the whole fucking world down before I let you belong to anyone else.”
His breath hitched. Tears glittered on his lashes. “Then say it,” he whispered. “Say somethingreal.”
“I’m yours,” I said. “I’ve always been yours. I was just too much of a coward to admit it.”
A beat. Then another passed. The silence stretched like a tightrope between us. Sin’s lips parted. A thousand things flickered in his eyes—pain, disbelief, longing—before he turned his face into my palm, just for a second.
“I don’t need perfect,” he breathed. “I just needreal.”
I pulled him in like gravity, clung to him like the last breath in my lungs. And maybe it was too late. Maybe we were already ruined. But I wasn’t going to lose him without a fight.
Not again. Not ever. But sometimes we didn’t get what we wanted, no matter how right it felt.
“Then come home with me,” I begged, my voice cracking open like a wound. “Come back with me and let me take care of you.”
For a fleeting second, I saw it—the falter. The hesitation in Sin’s gaze, like the weight of my words, had sunk in just enough to shake him. His dark eyes shimmered beneath the low club lights, wild curls damp with sweat. I thought maybe—maybe—I’d done enough. That my pleading, my reaching, had been enough to tip the scale.
But just as my fingers hovered over his skin, just as I was about to anchor myself to him—he stepped back. A breath caught in my throat.
He shook his head, slow and final. “Pretty words don’t mean anything, Theo.”
His voice wasn’t cruel—but it was devastating. “I respect myself enough to know that only your actions show that you mean it.”
“What does that mean?” My body moved of its own accord, chasing him, mirroring his retreat. “What do you want from me? Just tell me what to do—please.”
Sin’s arms crossed tight over his chest, tattooed forearms rippling as he folded himself shut. I could feel him closing the door between us. Locking it.
“Tell me what’s really going on,” he pleaded, each word sharpened with pain. “Have you told your father about us?”
My heart dropped like stone. Shame coiled around my throat like a noose. I dropped my gaze, hands falling limp at my sides. “It’s not that simple?—”
“It is,” he snapped, the rawness in his voice cracking like lightning. “Itisthat simple, Theo.”
He beat a fist against his chest, pain and pride radiating in equal measure. “My family cut me off. Kicked me out. Because I didn’t fit into their picture-perfect life. I didn’t check their boxes.I wasn’tenough. And I have to live with that rejection every goddamn day.” He was shaking now, blinking furiously, trying to stop the tears that clung to his lashes. “But you know what?” His voice dropped, thick with heartbreak.
“What?” I rasped, feeling every one of his words like glass dragging through me.
He looked at me—truly looked at me. Eyes brimming, voice trembling but strong.
“Nothing they did… not the abandonment, not the silence, not the emotional rejection—none of it hurt me as much as you lying to me.”
