His expression darkened not with anger, but something else. He leaned forward, eyes dark and intent. “I’m not doing this because I have to, Elliot.”
My throat tightened. “Then why?”
“Because someone should have done it for you since the day you lost your mom.” He exhaled, long and raw. “Because you deserve more than being left behind.”
My chest twisted. The lump in my throat scraped against everything I’d buried.
I looked away first. “If this is a mistake,” I said, barely more than a breath, “tell me now.” I didn’t tell him the rest. I didn’t tell him how scared I was of how much I needed him. How the thought of him leaving hurt more than anything else in the world. I swallowed it down and let the silence pretend I was braver than I was.
Anthony didn’t react, didn’t even blink at my words. He leaned back in the chair, eyes scanning me like I was a puzzle he didn’t want to solve too fast. “It would be easier if it was.”
“But it’s not?”
“No.” His voice was rough. “It’s not.”
We sat in the aftershock of that truth. My mom’s ghost was still in the walls. My dad’s absence still rang like silence through the empty halls. But Anthony was here. And maybe that didn’t fix anything but it made the breaking bearable.
When he stood and cleared the table, rinsing away the food I’d destroyed, I watched in stunned silence. “You don’t have to?—”
“Iwantto,” he said. “Let me do this.”
It was thewantthat got me. Not the duty. Not the guilt. Just… him. Wanting to help carry something that was too damn heavy.
Once he’d scrubbed the counters down and dried his hands. He sat next to me on the couch, so close our shoulders touched.
He didn’t move away and neither did I. We just settled into the silence between us. He scrolled through Netflix like the world wasn’t ending and tomorrow was guaranteed.
I pulled my knees up underneath myself and curled into the space between us, tucked my face into the neck of his hoodie, and breathed him in.
The ache in my chest didn’t leave. It just didn’t cut as deep. Grief still lived there. Loss still clawed under my skin. But as his arm came around me, steady and warm, for the first time in what felt like forever, I didn’t feelcompletelyalone.
Not whole. Not healed. But held. And for now… that was enough. It was enough that I could take a breath and it didn’t feel like I was drowning. I had questions—so many they roared in my skull like thunder, threatening to tear open old wounds and spill secrets even I didn’t understand. But for the first time in days, Ifelt still. Safe. Like if I closed my eyes, the world would still be the same when they opened.
So I did. Only for a second… Or maybe longer. Time slipped. Because the next thing I knew, I was being lifted.
My limbs hung heavy, my head lolled against a solid chest that smelled like fabric softener, cedar and sea salt—something warm and distinctly Anthony. I was still wrapped in his hoodie, my fingers fisted in the fabric like I was clinging to a life raft. I should’ve been embarrassed, maybe even startled, but I wasn’t. My body trusted him before my mind had a chance to argue. That was the dangerous part.
I heard the soft creak of stairs beneath his feet. The quiet grunt as he shifted me higher against his chest like I was something fragile. My cheek brushed the side of his neck, and I let out a breath that trembled too hard.
He felt it. His grip on my thigh tightened, firm and grounding. Like he was saying:I know. I’m here.
The door to my room gave a low groan as he pushed it open, and he carried me across the threshold like some messed-up fairytale, past the remnants of a life that didn’t feel like mine anymore. My walls were still plastered with the echoes of a childhood I couldn’t get back. Posters. Photos. Trophies for things I didn’t care about. My bed looked smaller than I remembered.
Anthony lowered me down with an ease that said he’d done this before—held broken things, maybe even put some back together. The mattress dipped beneath my weight, the sheets cold against my overheated skin. I felt his hand linger, fingers brushing the line of my jaw as he reached for the blanket and pulled it up to my chest with the kind of tenderness that didn’t belong in a world like this.
My eyes fluttered open. Only just.
His silhouette hovered above me in the dark, shadowed by moonlight filtering through the blinds. I couldn’t see him clearly, but I didn’t need to. I could feel the moment he hesitated—about to turn away.
“No—” My voice cracked, small and brittle. “With me.” My fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt before I could stop myself, just enough to feel him there. Just enough to see if he would pull away.
He froze. Time caught between one heartbeat and the next. “Elliot…” he said, so quietly it hurt.
“Please.” It came out wrong. Too raw. Tooreal. “Just hold me together.”And maybe that was the most honest thing I’d ever said.
He didn’t answer, not with words. Something broke in the silence between us. Not loud. Just a breath, soft and sad. Then movement—the rustle of clothes, the soft creak of the mattress again as he slid in beside me. One strong arm wrapped around my waist, pulling me back against his chest, anchoring me in place. His warmth bled into me like sunlight through stained glass, fractured and imperfect but still enough to push back the dark.
I swallowed hard, my breath catching as I let myself be held. My ribs felt too fragile for this. Too breakable. But I didn’t care. I didn’t realize I was shaking until his hand splayed flat over my sternum, grounding me. Not gently. Firm. Like he was trying to reach inside and calm the panic from the source.
