I swallow hard, feeling the heat crawling up my neck. “We’re not… anything. We used to be stepbrothers, but then he left.”
“Without saying goodbye?” he asks.
I breathe out a sigh and nod. “Yeah. One day we were close, and the next… nothing. He’s been ignoring me ever since.”
Sage studies me for a long moment, then offers me a sad smile. “That kind of silence is its own kind of cruelty. Especially when it comes from someone you trusted.”
The only thing I can do is look away and nod.
“Just don’t let it fester,” he continues. “Trust me, waiting around for someone else to fix the hurt never works. You either say what you need to say, or you let it rot until it eats everything else.”
I look back at him then, and he gives me a small smile—and it’s understanding rather than sympathy. “You’ll figure it out, Noah.”
Then he’s gone, the sliding glass door whispering shut behind him, leaving me with the night and the quiet. I stand there for a long time after he leaves, his words echoing in my head.
The truth is, I don’t know what I’m waiting for anymore. For Damien to talk to me first? For him to be the one to bridge the gap he created? Or to tell me the truth as to why he left? Damien’s silence already ate everything it could, and yet, I can’t seem to stop feeding it.
But I wonder if Sage is right—if maybe the only way to stop hurting is to finally say the things I’ve been too scared to voice.
Even if it breaks me.
Damien
It’ssuffocatinginthere.The laughter, the clinking glasses, the bodies pressed too close together in a house that feels smaller than usual. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me. I used to love these kind of parties. Used to thrive on the noise, the distraction, the blur of lights, warmth, and movement.
Now all it does is remind me that I don’t feel at home in my own damn skin anymore.
I’ve been playing the part. The easy-going, dirty-joke-cracking, tattooed basketball captain who always has a drink in his hand and a smirk on his face. But my jaw’s aching from clenching it, and the smile I’ve been wearing since seven is starting to splinter at the edges.
I move toward the railing, already bracing my elbows on it, when I realize I’m not alone. There’s someone already out here, leaning against the far corner of the deck and half-lit by the string lights. My stomach drops before my brain fully catches up.
Noah.
He turns at the sound of my footsteps, stiffening when he sees me. His expression shutters, mouth parting as if he’s caught off guard, too.
For a second, we just stare at each other like two idiots who forgot how to function.
His hands come up in front of him, palms half-raised. “I didn’t know you were coming out here. I’ll—I’ll give you space, sorry—”
“Blue, wait.”
The words are out before I can claw them back, and the second they leave my mouth, I wish I could reach through the air and strangle them dead. The nickname slips out with a softness I haven’t let myself use in years.
And now he’s staring at me with wide, uncertain eyes, the kind that always made me forget how to breathe. One dark, one pale—and still so goddamn honest it hurts.
He stands there, flushed, rattled, and so very…Noah, that I feel the last four years collapse into nothing. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to stand here and look at him as if he didn’t haunt every decision I made since the night I left. “You don’t have to go.”
Noah looks down at his sneakers. “I don’t want to make it weird.”
“You’re not making it weird,” I say, lying through my teeth.
I study him in the glow of the string lights above the deck. He’s taller now, shoulders broader, his face sharper with age, but the way he curls into himself when he’s overwhelmed hasn’t changed at all. His fingers still tug at the sleeve of his shirt in those small, restless motions he probably doesn’t even notice. He still can’t hold eye contact for more than a few seconds before his gaze flicks away.
And right now, those eyes—those mismatched, too-bright, impossibly beautiful eyes—are glassy.
The sight of it hits me square in the heart.
“Noah,” I whisper. “Hey, are you—what’s wrong?”
