“I know,” I breathed, half laughing through tears. “I know. It’s—it’s huge.”
He looked at me like he understood the magnitude of small changes. Like he knew that healing didn’t usually arrive as fireworks, but as choices made again and again in ordinary rooms.
“I’m glad,” he said.
“So, am I,” I whispered.
And then, because my body needed it, because the day had been too full and too bright and too fragile, I turned into Connor and wrapped my arms around him.
He held me immediately.
No hesitation.
No delay.
We stood there in the quiet hallway of The Sanctuary—this strange place built for men who’d been burned by the world—and I realized I’d found something I hadn’t known to ask for.
Not safety as an absence of danger.
Safety as presence.
As being held without being handled.
As becoming without being abandoned.
Connor’s mouth brushed my temple. “You were incredible tonight,” he murmured.
I let out a shaky breath. “You were there.”
“I will always be there,” he said, voice low, the words settling into my bones.
I pulled back enough to look at him. The bruised exhaustion was still there. The grief was still there.
But there was something else, too.
A tether.
Me.
“You were proud,” I said, almost accusingly, because it made me feel too much.
His gaze didn’t flinch. “Yeah,” he said simply. “I was.”
My throat tightened. “No one’s ever looked at me like that.”
He stepped closer, forehead touching mine. “Get used to it,” he murmured. “Because I’m not stopping.”
A laugh escaped me—soft, watery.
I threaded my fingers through his, feeling the calluses, the strength, the steadiness.
The world outside The Sanctuary kept moving. Threats would still exist somewhere. Past wounds would still echo.
But Merrick was gone.
The immediate shadow had lifted.
And I could finally see my own life without constantly bracing for something to break.
