His breath is shallow, chest rising and falling fast. “Okay,” he whispers.
I close the gap, reaching up with hands that are steadier than I feel, framing his face gently, brushing my thumbs over the soft skin beneath his eyes. He doesn’t flinch. He leans into my touch, eyes fluttering shut.
Then, with everything that’s been building for years—fear, longing, hope, regret—I lower my lips to his and claim the kiss I’ve ached for.
It’s not soft or sweet. It’s every year I spent trying to forget the way his laugh used to sound. Every night I spent wondering if he hated me. It’s all the things I never said and all the things I should’ve done. It’s a fucking apology in the shape of my mouth—a confession with no words left.
It’s four years of restraint snapping.
He gasps against my mouth, and I swallow the sound, groaning when his hands fist in the front of my hoodie and drag me closer. The world narrows to the shape of him: the press of his lips, the heat of his breath, the way his body fits against mine. I deepen the kiss, letting all the missed years, the regret and the need and the aching, messy love between us spill out until there’s nothing left but him.
When I finally break away, we’re both breathless, his eyes shining and wet, a shaky laugh bubbling up from somewhere inside him. I press my forehead to his, trying to hold myself together, but I can’t help the way my own smile breaks loose. I run my thumb over the corner of his mouth, memorizing the way he smiles, shaky and so damn beautiful.
“I’m in love with you, Blue,” I say, finally unguarded. “I’ve been in love with you for as long as I can remember, and I’ve never stopped. I only left because your dad threatened us both. He told me he’d destroy your future, take your scholarship, andmake sure no team ever looked at me if I stayed. He saw how I loved you and hated it.”
Noah’s grip tightens on my hoodie, and he leans back, his face a mask of horror as he looks at me. “What?” he breathes. “What do you… my dad…?”
I nod. “Your dad made it clear that he didn’t want me ‘rubbing off’ on you. He saw how much I wanted you, and he was disgusted by it,” I say, swallowing my anger. “And I wanted you so much it fucking wrecked me, Noah. I thought leaving was the only way to protect you. I thought you’d be better off hating me than losing everything you worked for.”
The tears that were shining in his eyes now spill over his flushed cheeks. “I—I don’t even…” he takes a breath and shakes his head. “I don’t even want the life he wants for me!”
The way he screams it has my heart doing a proud flip, and I can do nothing but watch as everything that he’s been bottling up finally comes spilling out.
“I don’t want to be a swimmer or a model. I never did! I tried, because that’s what you do when you grow up in that house—you try to be small enough, quiet enough, perfect enough. But I hated it. I stillhateit,” he finishes, his voice cracking, his hands curling into fists against my chest as if he doesn’t know where to put all that fury.
I feel it rise in me too, hot and violent, the old instinct to go to war for him, to put my fist through something and call it justice. My jaw locks hard enough to ache.
Without thinking, I pull him into me, wrapping my arms around him before that anger can turn inward the way I know it does with him. He stiffens for half a second, then collapses against my chest as the fight drains straight out of him.
“He doesn’t get to do that anymore. I won’t… I won’t allow it,” Noah says, voice shaking. “He doesn’t get to decide who I love or what I want or whether I’m allowed to—”
“Hey,” I murmur, one hand coming up to cradle the back of his head, fingers threading gently through his hair. “Hey. Breathe with me, Blue. Just breathe.”
He clutches at my hoodie, and I feel his breath hitch against my chest. “He had no right. He had no right to do that to you. Or to me.”
“I know,” I say quietly, pressing my cheek to his hair. “I know he didn’t. But listen to me for a second, yeah?”
He nods against me, and I slow my breathing deliberately, exaggerating it so he can feel the rise and fall of my chest. I’ve done this before with him when he spirals. I remember how.
“In through your nose,” I say softly. “Out through your mouth. That’s it. Can you do it again for me?”
It takes a few tries, but eventually his breathing starts to match mine. The tension in his shoulders eases just a little.
“That anger makes sense,” I tell him quietly. “Every bit of it. But you don’t have to burn yourself alive with it.”
He finally looks up at me then, eyes red and brimming with unshed tears. “I’m so angry, I don’t know what else to do with it.”
“Yeah, I know.” I brush my thumb under his eye, wiping away a tear before it falls. “You don’t need to decide anything tonight. Not about him. Not about swimming. Not about your future. All you need to do right now is stay right here.”
He exhales shakily. “What if he still has power? What if he can still hurt you?”
I don’t lie to him, and I won’t brush it off. “Then we deal with it together. With lawyers. With my dad. With people who know how to protect us now. But he doesn’t get to scare us into silence anymore.”
Noah swallows, the fight draining out of him in slow waves. “You shouldn’t have had to give up four years of your life for me.”
I shake my head. “I didn’t give it up for nothing. I gave it up because I loved you, and I still do.” I press my forehead tohis. “And if I could go back, I’d do some things differently—but loving you was never a mistake.”
His breath stutters, and then he leans into me fully, forehead against my chest, fists twisting in the fabric at my sides. I wrap my arms around him without hesitation, holding him as I should have all along.
