It was barely a touch. A graze of skin.
The contact sent a shock up my arm, awareness flaring hot and sudden. I pulled back instantly, heart racing, my body reacting before my mind could catch up.
“Sorry,” he murmured, stepping back to give me space.
“It’s fine,” I said.
But it wasn’t fine.
It was everything I’d been trying not to feel.
Dinner passed gently. Lily chattered. Ethan listened carefully. I watched him without meaning to, the way he crouched to Lily’s level, his mouth curved, the steadiness of him now.
After Lily was bathed and tucked into bed, after the light was switched off and her breathing evened out, we lingered in the kitchen again.
The house felt different at night. Heavier. Like it held secrets.
He waited.
“I don’t know how to do this,” I went on. “I keep feeling like I’m never enough for anyone.”
“I don’t know how to do this,” I went on. “I keep feeling like I’m never enough for anyone.”
The words were not enough to convey the depth of what I felt. There were no words to describe how scared I was of never being enough for anyone. Scared because people always seemed to leave first. My mother. Then Jenny. Even when the leaving wasn’t a choice, it still felt like abandonment. Like some unspoken truth about me that everyone else understood but I never quite could.
I could not voice, how lonely I felt. How quiet my life had become. How sometimes I lay awake wondering how I was supposed to carry on without the people who had anchored me. I felt my throat close as the tears came, sudden and humiliating, grief rising faster than I could manage it.
Ethan didn’t let me unravel alone.
He crossed the space between us and wrapped his arms around me, steady and warm, like he’d been doing this his whole life. I let myself fall into him, my forehead pressing against his shoulder as my breath hitched.
“That’s not true,” he said softly. “You have so many people who love you. How can you even say that?”
I shook my head, unable to answer.
He pulled back just enough to look at me, his expression gentle but serious. “If you don’t stop talking like that, my mom’s going to scold you,” he added, trying for lightness. “And trust me, you don’t want that.”
A wet laugh slipped out of me before I could stop it.
Then his voice shifted, quieter now, sincere. “You do know how many people love you, right? I mean it. Even if you count my whole family, I don’t think I have as many people who care about me the way people care about you. That says something about you. About who you are.”
The words landed slowly, like something I needed time to believe.
“I miss my mom,” I whispered.
That did it.
He didn’t say anything after that. He just pulled me back against him and let me cry into his shoulder, my fingers clutching the fabric of his shirt as if letting go would undo me completely. He held me without flinching, without trying to fix it, without asking me to be brave.
After a while, when my breathing finally slowed, he pressed his cheek lightly against my hair.
“Let it out,” he murmured. “Tomorrow will be better. I promise.”
I didn’t know if tomorrow would be better.
But standing there, held together by his arms and his quiet certainty, I let myself hope.
Chapter 57
