Eddie
They’re still wrapped around each other, Cleo and Barret.And yet—I don’t feel like I’m on the outside looking in.I feel it—through them.That love.That ache.That exhale offinally.
It’s not something I’m watching.
It’s something I’m in.
That’s how it’s always been between us.
Even when we didn’t know how to say it.
Even when our hands never touched at the same time.
Even when our hearts beat out of sync.
This thing—we never gave it a name.But it was there.Breathing beneath everything.Lingering in glances that lasted too long, in silences that felt crowded, in the ache when only one of us had to let go.
It was never halves.Never thirds.
Never Barret and Cleo with me trailing behind.
Never me standing on the edge of something I wasn’t allowed to want.
It’s always been the three of us.
Tangled.Unlabeled.Unfolding.
A constellation of feelings that refused to orbit just one star.
We burned in each other’s gravity, and none of us had the words.
But now we do.
Now she’s saying it.Now we’re touching the truth with our mouths and our hands and our confessions.
Love in triplicate—three threads pulling taut in the same direction.
And watching her fall apart into him like that—watching him kiss her with every truth he’s been holding back—it doesn’t make me feel left out.It makes me feel whole.Like something we’ve been holding our breath for is finally here.
She pulls back from Barret slowly, still dazed, lips kissed open, and her eyes find mine like she knew I was waiting.Like she’s been aching for me too.
“I love you,” she breathes, like it costs her something to say it again, like it matters just as much the second time.
I move without thinking, stepping in close until we’re face to face, breaths brushing, her warmth spilling into my chest.I cup her face gently, like I’m afraid to break the moment, like I’ve been waiting to touch her since the second she slipped away from us.
Her skin is flushed, lips still kiss-dazed, and her eyes—God, her eyes—are rimmed with emotion so thick it feels like the air between us might collapse.She doesn’t say anything.She doesn’t have to.
She’s letting me in.
“I know,” I whisper.“And I love you back.I never stopped.”
My thumbs stroke over her cheekbones, and she leans into me like I’m oxygen.She doesn’t even hesitate when I kiss her.
She meets me with equal hunger, fingers digging into my shoulders, pulling me closer like she wants me carved into her bones.I kiss her deep.She tastes like longing, like pain and hope threaded together.Her mouth parts for me on a sigh, and I take it slow, so fucking slow, like I’m drinking her in.
I press a hand to her back, sliding it beneath the hem of her shirt just to feel her skin.Her warmth.Her realness.
She’s alive.She’s here.And she’s mine.Ours.
