“You did. And I kept telling myself I had time to tell you everything. That I’d wait for the right moment. But there was no right moment.” My voice broke. “I started to tell you. Told you I’d been changed by the system. That I’d turned into a bad kid. But I kept chickening out before telling you the rest.”
I forced myself to hold his gaze, even as shame burned through me. “I’m selfish and immature and reckless. I loved the way you looked at me, and I didn’t want that to change. So, I stayed quiet, and I told myself it would be okay, that I still had time to tell you, that maybe it wouldn’t matter if Wolfe never found out.” A sob caught in my throat. “But it does matter. And I’m sorry. God, Ryker, I’m so sorry, but for the record, I wasn’t going tocontinueto keep it from you.”
I took a deep breath and did something I should have from the beginning of this fight. I walked to the end table, pulled out a drawer, and retrieved the letter inside. “For a long time, I was hoping no one would find out. But after what you did for me and Rainbow …” I handed it to him. “I decided that if I was going to be with you, I owed you the whole truth. I wrote down my entire past. Everything. Every dark sin that I’d been too chickenshit to say out loud. It’s all in here. I wrote it down so I couldn’t chicken out again.”
Ryker looked at the handwritten letter. Then me. He stared at me, chest heaving, emotions warring across his face. The anger was still there, but beneath it, I could see something else breaking through. Understanding. Maybe even the beginnings of forgiveness.
Rainbow’s sharp bark cut through the tension. She’d been hiding under the coffee table, but now she scrambled out, whimpering at the raised voices. Without thinking, I bent down and scooped her into my arms, my fingers automatically finding the spot behind her ears that calmed her.
“Shh, it’s okay, baby,” I murmured against her fur, even as my own world was falling apart. “Everything’s okay.”
When I looked up, Ryker was watching us. Watching me. Hiseyes tracked the way my hands gentled the trembling dog. He watched how I tucked her against my chest to make her feel safe, even when I felt anything but. Something in his expression shifted, softened, like he was seeing something he’d missed before.
He took a step forward. Stopped. Ran his hand through his hair again, slower this time. Processing. Calculating. That brilliant legal mind of his sorting through everything I’d said, everything I hadn’t said, everything that lay between us now, like shattered glass.
“I can’t do this without trust, Faith.” His voice was rough. “I can’t love someone who won’t let me in.”
“I know.” The words came out broken. “I know, and I’m sorry.”
He stepped closer, and I could see the exhaustion in his eyes. “If we’re going to do this, if we’re going to be together, I need all of you. I will always love every part of you. The good, the bad, the parts you think are too ugly to love. Even if you did things you’re not proud of. Even if you made mistakes. Even if you fought dirty to survive.” He reached for me tentatively, and when I didn’t pull away, his hands cupped my face. “I’ll still love you, Faith. But I need the truth. I need your trust.”
“You have it.” I covered his hands with mine. “All of it. I promise.”
“Tell me the rest,” he said softly, setting the letter down. “Everything Wolfe has and everything he doesn’t.”
So, I did.
The words poured out like poison being drained from a wound. The vandalism. The relationships I’d used for shelter. The money I’d stolen. Every shameful compromise, every moral gray area, every desperate choice.
I told him about the foster dad who’d locked the refrigerator, how I’d learned to pick the lock at two in the morning just to eat. About sleeping in a storage unit for three weeks after aging out because it was safer than the shelter. About the time I’d pretendedto love someone, just to have a roof over my head, and how sick it made me feel every single day.
With each confession, I watched his face. Waited for the disgust. The disappointment. The moment he’d pull his hands away and tell me I was exactly what he’d feared.
But through it all, Ryker stayed.
When I finally ran out of confessions, when every secret had been dragged into the light, I sobbed into his chest. He held me through it, solid and steady and there.
“I love you,” he said when my sobs finally quieted to hiccups. He tilted my chin up so I had to meet his eyes. “Trust is everything to me. Okay? No more secrets. No more hiding. We face everything together.”
“Together,” I repeated, the word feeling like a promise.
“Together.” He kissed my forehead, soft and sure. “Now, let’s figure out how to beat this bastard at his own game.”
Standing there in his arms, feeling seen for the first time in my life and still wanted, still chosen, something inside me finally shifted.
He chose me. Not despite my broken pieces, but with full knowledge of them. Not the chameleon. Not the survivor.
Me.
The realization hit like lightning: Love wasn’t about being perfect. It was about being known.
Vulnerable enough to show them all of you. Even the bad parts.
And for the first time in my life, I was both.
54
FAITH
