“Yes,” he says. “They might. They might choose comfort over courage. But that is their shame, not yours. You do not carry that.”
The words land like a weight and a relief at the same time.
I close my eyes.
He doesn’t move.
His thumb keeps tracing that same path along my cheekbone—slow, grounding strokes, as if he’s reminding my skin that it’s still mine.
“You’re shaking,” he says softly.
“I know,” I say. “I feel… wrung out. Like I’m not quite back inside my body yet.”
“Then we take our time,” he murmurs. “Make more room.”
His hand leaves my shoulder only long enough to slide to the back of my neck, broad palm spanning the nape, fingers threading gently into my hair.
He leans in.
For a split second, I think he’s going to kiss me. Part of me wants that—wants to drown all of this in heat and breath and the kind of closeness that makes the rest of the world shrink.
He doesn’t kiss me.
He presses his forehead to mine.
Not a bump. Not an accident.
A deliberate, careful touch—skin to skin, brow to brow, breath mingling in the small space between our mouths.
The world narrows to that point of contact.
My eyes flutter open in surprise, then close again because the intensity of the moment is too much to look at head-on.
There’s something… ceremonial in it. Ancient. Like he’s drawing a protective circle around us.
His hands bracket the sides of my face now, thumbs at my temples, fingers warm along my jaw.
“When I fought,” he murmurs, voice so close I feel it echo through bone, “the only thing that mattered was what I did with the fear. Not whether it came.”
My breath shakes. “It came.”
“I know.” His forehead rests more fully against mine. “And you did not run. You did not bow your head and say, ‘take it, it is easier.’ You said, ‘this is mine.’ You pushed their wheel with your bare hands. That is… more courage than many men in the arena ever found.”
A sob punches out of me—small, involuntary.
His thumbs catch fresh tears.
“Look at me,” he says gently.
I open my eyes.
He’s right here. So close I can see the tiny flecks of gold in his irises, the faint lines at the corners where laughter and pain have both etched themselves over the years.
There is no joke on his face now.
No mask. No Jester.
Just him.
