Why when everything else is falling apart?
I swing my legs over the side of the bed, standing slowly, the room spinning just slightly before I steady myself. I move to the window, pulling the curtain back just enough to look outside.
The world is still wrecked. Water pooled in the streets. Debris everywhere. People moving and trying to piece things back together one step at a time.
And somewhere out there—my family. Or what’s left of it. My chest tightens again, sharper this time.
Before I know it Garrison is standing next to me. My heart jumps. He looks just as tired as he did yesterday.
But his eyes… The second they find mine something shifts in them. Something that mirrors exactly what I’m feeling.
“Hey,” he says quietly.
“Hey.”
We just stand there for a second. Looking at each other. And everything from last night is right there between us. Unspoken. My heart stutters painfully in my chest because I want him so much it scares me.
I want to feel his arms around me again and forget about everything else for just a second—but I can’t.
My voice wavers slightly. “We need to go.”
He nods immediately.
“Yeah,” he says. “We do.” No hesitation. No argument.
Because he knows. He understands. He’s everything I could ever want. And I might not get to have him. Not really. Not without losing something else.
My throat tightens.
“I don’t know how to do this,” I admit softly.
His brow furrows. “Do what?”
“This,” I gesture vaguely between us, my voice breaking just slightly. “Feel like this about you… and still?—”
I stop.
Because I don’t even know how to finish that sentence.
He steps a little closer, his voice low. “And still what?”
“Still feel like my heart is breaking,” I whisper.
The words hang there.
“Willow…”
“I don’t want to lose them,” I say quickly, the words spilling out now. “I don’t want to lose my dad or my sister, and I don’t even know if they’re okay, and I feel like I shouldn’t be thinking about anything else but them, but I can’t stop thinking about you either, and I don’t know what that says about me?—”
“Hey.”
He closes the distance, his hands coming up to gently hold my arms.
Grounding me.
“It doesn’t say anything bad about you,” he says firmly. “It says you’re human.”
My chest tightens.
