I take another step closer. My pulse thuds everywhere at once.
"That's all I have, Eli. But it's yours if you want it."
For a long moment, he just stares at me. Then he shakes his head once, sharp.
"That's not enough."
The words land like a physical blow.
"It has to be," I say. "Because it's all I can give."
"You're asking me to take you knowing you might leave again." His voice is rough, controlled, but barely. "You're asking me to survive that twice."
"Yes."
The word hangs between us.
He turns away, runs both hands through his hair, spins back. "Jesus Christ, Hazel."
I don't move. Don't look away.
"I've loved you my whole life," he says finally, the words sounding torn from somewhere deep. Like he's never said them out loud before. Like saying them now might break him. "And you're standing here asking me to risk it again. For what? For right now? For as long as you feel like staying?"
"Yes," I say again, quieter this time.
His hands flex at his sides. "You can't ask me that."
"I know."
"It's not enough."
"I know that too."
Silence fills the cabin.
He's staring at me like he's trying to see the future. Trying to calculate whether "right now" is worth the inevitable ending. Whether he can survive loving me and losing me again.
I watch him make the choice.
See the exact moment his resolve cracks.
He stares at me. Something warring in his eyes—anger and want and a kind of desperation I recognize because I feel it too.
"Fuck," he breathes. Then again, louder, "Fuck."
He crosses the room in three long strides.
His hands are on me before my next breath, fingers firm at my waist, pulling me into him like restraint has finally lost. His mouth crashes into mine—rough and urgent and unapologetic.
I gasp against him. The sound vanishes into his mouth.
The kiss is all teeth and breath and pressure. Years of almost and not yet and what if pouring out in one collision. His hands slide up my back, over every curve, then down again, gripping my hips like he needs to make sure I'm real.
I don't step back.
I cling to him, fisting his shirt, pulling him closer even though there's no space left between us.
He breaks the kiss only to press his forehead to mine, breath ragged. "I'll take it," he says, voice wrecked. "I'll take whatever you give me. Because walking away from you is worse than surviving you leaving again."
