Something in my chest loosens despite myself. I rest my forehead against hers, breathing her in, grounding myself in the fact that she’s warm and breathing and arguing with me instead of gone. “You scared me,” I say. “And I don’t scare easily.”
Her voice is quieter now. “You think I wasn’t scared?”
“I think you hid it better.”
She huffs a weak laugh. “Practice.”
Outside, someone knocks again. Not pounding this time. Waiting. Respecting the fact that I haven’t answered and reading that silence for what it is.
“I’m not letting them in yet,” I say.
“Good,” she replies immediately, no hesitation.
I don’t move away from her. Instead, I slide one hand to her lower back, firm and steady, anchoring her there, while the other comes up to cradle the base of her skull. Not possessive. Not claiming. Protective in a way that doesn’t pretend I can undo what’s already been done.
“Listen to me,” I say quietly.
She lifts her head, eyes sharp despite the exhaustion threaded through her. “I am.”
“I don’t make promises lightly,” I continue. “And I don’t make them to help people feel better in the moment.”
Her mouth curves faintly. “That sounds ominous.”
“It’s accurate.” I lean in until our foreheads rest together, breath mingling, the contact intimate without being indulgent. Close enough that I can feel the faint tremor she’s still fighting, close enough that she can feel how carefully I’m holding myself together. “No one is taking you from me again. Not institutions. Not doctors or directors or faceless enemies. Not men who think entitlement is the same thing as ownership. Not circumstance. Not your own instinct to run when things get sharp. Even fate can’t tear you away from me. In this life or the next.”
Her breath catches, but she doesn’t pull away.
“If you leave,” I go on, voice low and deliberate, “it will be because you chose to. With your eyes open. And I will know where you are. And you will be able to come back.”
“That sounds suspiciously like rules,” she murmurs.
“It is,” I say. “They’re mine.”
Her hands curl into my shirt again, slower this time, steadier. “And if I don’t want them?”
“Then we argue,” I say. “We negotiate. We break them and build better ones.” My thumb presses gently at the base of her skull, a quiet emphasis. “But you don’t disappear. And you don’t carry this alone.”
She exhales, a long breath she’s clearly been holding onto for too long. “You can’t actually guarantee that.”
“No,” I admit. “But I can guarantee this.” I lower my voice another degree. “Anyone who tries to take you – or what you’re carrying – will have to go through me first.”
That finally does it. Her eyes close, just for a second, and she leans fully into the contact, forehead pressed to mine, grounding herself there. Not surrender. Acceptance.
“You’re terrifying,” she says softly.
“I know,” I reply. “I’m also on your side.”
She opens her eyes again. “That’s the part that scares me.”
“Good,” I say. “It should.”
We stay like that for another beat – breathing, steadying, neither of us reaching for a kiss that would soften this into something easier. Outside, the knock doesn’t come again. They’re waiting for my decision.
“I’m still here,” she says quietly.
“I know,” I answer. “That’s why I’m not opening the door yet.”
And for a few seconds longer, the world holds – just enough to breathe.
