“I was scared,” I admitted, rolling the frayed cuff of my hoodie between my fingers. “That while you were working on yourself, you’d realize being with me was a mistake. That I was just… grief debris you clung to after you lost my mom and dad.”
His face crumpled. “You were never a mistake,” he said immediately. “You were the first thing that felt like truth.”
I took a shaky breath. “I love you,” I said. “With my whole heart. And I’m still afraid. But I don’t want a love that only exists when it doesn’t hurt.”
His hand dropped from my face and reached for mine slowly placing it over his chest. The steady beat of his heart grounded me. “I choose you,” he breathed. “Not as a rescue attempt. Not as a replacement. As my future.”
The sunset bled across the sky like a promise. I leaned into him, forehead brushing his.
“For the first time,” I whispered, “love doesn’t feel like a cliff.”
He exhaled shakily, lips trembling into a faint smile. “Then let me be the place you land,” he said softly, “not the reason you fall.”
Something in my chest broke open. “You’re the only thing I’ve ever waited for,” I said, the words tearing out of me like a confession and a prayer all at once.
His breath hitched. Slowly, deliberately, he lifted his hands to my waist. Not gripping, just anchoring me in the moment.
“I want to try again,” he said. “The right way. With honesty, patience and boundaries that work for us both. And face all the parts of me that used to run.”
My eyes burned at his openness. He was breathtaking like this in a way I’d never seen him before.
“With therapy,” he added quietly. “With accountability. And staying when things get hard.”
I nodded, tears spilling freely now. “Yes.”
That was all it took. He leaned in like he was asking permission with every inch. Our lips brushed once—barely there—a test, a question. I answered the only way I could, by closing the gap and sealing our mouths together again.
His mouth moved against mine slowly, reverently, like he was relearning the language of my body. Like he was afraid of breaking something sacred.
I exhaled into him, my body melting under his touch. Anthony groaned softly, the sound vibrating straight through my chest, and his hands tightened just a little at my waist as the kiss deepened.
It wasn’t desperate. It was grounding. It was everything I’d ever dreamt a first kiss could be.
Our foreheads rested together as we breathed each other in, noses brushing, lips still ghosting against skin.
“I’m here,” he whispered.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
I threaded my fingers into his hair, tugged him back into me. This time, the kiss carried everything we hadn’t said. Everything we’d survived through to get to this point.
The fear.
The grief.
The hope.
When the lighthouse beacon flickered on behind us—steady and bright against the darkening ocean—I knew this wasn’t the beginning of another ending.
It was the beginning of the life we were finally brave enough to build.
CHAPTER 28
ANTHONY
The moment he said,“You’re the only thing I’ve ever waited for,”something inside me finally stopped running. Like a muscle I’d been clenching for decades finally remembered how to let go.
I moved back from the edge of the lighthouse wall and tugged him gently by the hips until he came with me. I sat back against the cool glass, the thick blanket pooling beneath me, and pulled him down into my lap like it was the most natural thing in the world.
