“I know,” I breathed. “And that’s why I can’t let this happen. If I take this—takeyou—I won’t give you back.” And the part of me that frightened me most was the part that didn’t see that as a problem.
A stillness swept over him. Not in fear, but understanding.
“I’m not trying to fix you, never that,” I said. “I just don’t want to ruin you.”
“I don’t care if you ruin me,” he whispered. “I’d rather be wrecked by you than invisible to everyone else.”
Careful, deliberate, I pulled him off me, my heart splitting in two. Like unthreading a needle through skin. It still tore. Still bled. Even as I laid him down beside me, my hand stayed overthe frantic beat of his heart. Not for possession, but a silent promise: I hadn’t left. I wouldn’t. That even when I couldn’t give him what he wanted, he wasn’t alone. The weight of him pressed into me, a grounding presence neither of us could name aloud.
Fingers found mine under the sheets, holding tight, a lifeline. We stayed like that, half in darkness, each breath echoing what neither dared speak.
A whisper broke the silence: “What’s wrong with me?”
I froze. Small, vulnerable, and desperate. Words I had asked myself for years. Words that carved straight into me. It hurt more than I could fathom to hear them echoing back at me.
“There’s nothing wrong with you,” came finally. “You just haven’t been loved right yet.”
He looked at me then, not with hope but with desperation. “Is that what this is? You loving me the right way?”
“No,” I said softly. “It’s me, nothurtingyou.”
He closed his eyes, jaw tight. “Feels like the same thing.”
“It’s not. One leaves you bleeding. The other stays to help you stop.”
Eyes glassy, chest rising and falling slowly, he stared at the ceiling. “I don’t need you to fix me. I just don’t want to be this broken alone.”
“You’re not,” I whispered. “Not anymore.” The promise scared me more than it comforted me.
And for the first time, I let him see my cracks too. I wasn’t sure yet whether that was honesty or the beginning of something I wouldn’t survive intact.
We didn’t speak again. We just lay there—two broken people pretending it was enough just to be seen. And maybe, for that one night, it was.
Elliot stayed silent as he slid out of bed. The sheets clung to his legs for a moment, ghosting over the curves of him like a fragile shield. I watched him, every shift in his posture carvinginto me—small movements, almost imperceptible, that spoke more than words ever could.
He paused at the doorway, shoulders tight, hair sweat damp, breathing shallow. Part of me wanted to call him back, to wrap him in my arms and keep him here, safe from every fractured corner of the world. But I didn’t.
Instead, I stayed on the bed, eyes tracing him, memorizing the tilt of his neck, the way his calves flexed as he padded across the room. Every step made my chest ache—that physical, possessive ache of someone who wants to protect and claim without hurting.
The bathroom door clicked shut behind him, and the shower turned on. My hand twitched, wanting to follow, to check he was okay. My body ached with the knowledge that he’d let me stay this close, and yet still, he needed space.
A thin ribbon of steam began to creep out from beneath the bathroom door, ghosting across the floor like a quiet exhale. It felt like the room itself was breathing around his absence — warm, damp proof that he was still here, just out of reach.
I exhaled slowly, telling myself it was enough to watch. To know he’d let me hold him once tonight. That he trusted me, even for a breath. And yet the hunger to bridge the distance—to anchor him in my chest again—clawed at me like a living thing.
The silence he left behind wasn’t peaceful. It throbbed. Vibrated through the walls. Crawled inside me and settled deep, like it was trying to hollow me out.
I sat on the edge of the bed, my hand buried in my hair, chest rising and falling in tight, uneven pulls. The air felt thinner than before, like it had been used up by the weight of everything I couldn’t say. Everything I was afraid of.
So I did the only thing I knew how to do when I was this close to shattering: I dressed in silence. Each movement wasmechanical. Heavy. Like I was armoring up for a war I didn’t know how to win—and wasn’t sure I wanted to survive.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand. Once. Twice. I didn’t look at it at first. Then it buzzed again, an insistent needling noise I couldn’t ignore.
Jason
Client just pushed the Hatton site meeting to this morning. We need you on this.
I stared at the screen longer than I should have. Then I typed back:
