The stairs feel endless. My legs, already shaky from the drive, threaten to give out. The hallway is narrow, decorated with generic apartment building art. Someone’s cooking dinner—curry, from the smell. Normal life happening behind closed doors while I stand outside 2B with my heart trying to escape my chest.
I knock.
Footsteps, soft and cautious. The door opens a crack, chain still on, and Marcella’s face appears in the gap.
She looks terrible. Beautiful, always beautiful, but terrible—eyes red-rimmed and swollen, hair tangled, wearing sweats and an old t-shirt. Like she’s been crying.
Because of me.
“You drove to Denver.” Not a question. Disbelief.
“You were right,” I say. “About everything. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry, Marcella. Can we talk?”
She stares at me for a long moment. I can see the war in her eyes—hurt versus hope, self-protection versus the connection we both feel.
The chain rattles. The door swings open.
But she doesn’t step back to let me in. She stands in the doorway, arms crossed, a barrier I’ll have to earn my way past.
“Talk.”
So I do. Everything I couldn’t say yesterday pours out—my revelation about dishonoring my team’s memory, Moira’s words about Jimmy, the empty ranger station that feels like a tomb without her. I tell her about the drive here, the panic I’m fightingjust standing in this hallway, how none of it matters because losing her is worse than any anxiety attack.
“I love you,” I say. “I should have said it days ago. Hell, I should have said it that first night when you looked at me over dinner like I was worth knowing. But I was a coward, and I hurt you, and I’ll spend as long as it takes making that right if you’ll let me.”
She’s crying now, tears streaming down her face. But she doesn’t move toward me. Doesn’t reach for me.
“You drove to Denver,” she says. “You hate cities.”
“I hate being without you more.”
“That’s a line from a movie.”
“Is it working?”
She doesn’t laugh. Doesn’t soften. “You said you loved me. Yesterday, when you were packing my bags and pushing me out the door—did you love me then?”
The question cuts deep. “Yes.”
“And you still made me leave.”
“Yes.”
“So loving me wasn’t enough to make you fight for me.” Her voice is steady, but I can hear the blade underneath. “What’s different now? What’s going to stop you from panicking again next week, next month, next time things get hard?”
I don’t have an easy answer. She deserves more than promises I might not be able to keep.
“Nothing,” I admit. “Nothing’s going to stop me from being scared. I’m going to wake up some days convinced you’d be better off without me. I’m going to have panic attacks and bad nights and moments where I want to retreat into isolation because it’s safer.”
Her jaw tightens. “That’s not exactly reassuring.”
“I know. But here’s what’s different.” I take a breath. “Yesterday, I was trying to protect myself by pushing you away. Today, I drove three hours through a city that makes me want to crawl out of my skin because I realized something.”
“What?”
“That the only thing worse than risking loss is guaranteeing it.” My voice cracks. “I’ve already lost you once. I did that. And it nearly destroyed me. So yeah, I’m terrified. But I’m more terrified of spending the rest of my life wondering what we could have been.”
She’s silent for a long moment. The tears keep falling, but she doesn’t wipe them away.
