His knee sinks into the mattress. Then the other. He climbs in beside me, his movements cautious, like he’s still deciding whether he’s allowed to be here. But he must know. Somehow, he knows I need him more than I can say.
“Annie,” he says softly.
Just my name. My nickname. The one only he uses, like a secret unfolding between us.
I should have known right then what I was getting myself into.
My chest caves. I curl tighter, my voice crumbling. “I thought…I thought leaving Alex meant choosing me. But what if there’s nothing left of me to choose?” It spills out like poison, thick and unforgiving. “What if I already lost myself?”
He just lies there, close but not crowding, the heat of his body warming the air between us. A small shift, and then his hand brushes mine. A solace, an offering.
I take it.
Our fingers link together.
“You didn’t lose yourself,” he murmurs. “You’re still you.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “I don’t even know who I am anymore.”
“I do. You do too. And I know what it’s like to hate yourself for something you can’t undo. To relive it on loop. To think maybe the worst version of you is the real one.” His thumb traces a gentle path along my knuckles. “But it’s not. It’s just a version. Just a piece.”
A tear slips down my cheek, soaking into the pillow.
“I see the way you carry everything. Always have,” he says. “The way you try to protect everyone but yourself. You’re not broken, Annie. You’re human.”
I roll toward him, our faces now inches apart. “I don’t know how to fix it.”
“It’s not about fixing it. It’s about learning how to live with everything, the good and the bad. How to love yourself despite the flaws, despite the mistakes. It’s about giving yourself grace.”
My throat closes. “There’s just this awful part of me I can’t shake. Like maybe Alex was right,” I confess. “What if I hurt you? What if I do ruin people?”
“You don’t ruin people,” he says with conviction. “You’ve just carried more than you ever should’ve had to. And yeah, sometimes that weight makes you stumble. But that’s not the same thing as breaking someone.”
The words melt into me, gentle and soothing. My grief ebbs, little by little.
Maybe he’s right. Maybe it isn’t about perfection or destruction, about choosing between saint or monster. Maybe it’s about being human, flawed and fumbling, and still being worthy of love anyway. Maybe I don’t have to keep punishing myself to prove I’m good.
I let the thought crack something open in me. The tiniest sliver of light.
I shift closer, until there’s no space left between us. “I’ve missed you,” I breathe.
I hear his breath waver. A slight hitch.
Then his arm comes around me, gathering me to him like a magnet, an impossible draw. “I’ve been here,” he whispers.
“I know.”
I tuck my face against his shoulder, every nerve ending alight. My hand drifts to his chest, fingers splayed across warm muscle. He stiffens. Breathes in hard.
Our legs twine together. My lips whisper against his collarbone.
We stay like that, tangled in silence, for what could be seconds or eternities.
Then he breaks the quiet, exhaling deeply into my hair. “I don’t know what’s worse,” he rasps, voice low and strained. “Wanting you when I couldn’t have you, or right now, feeling you wrapped up in my arms, and knowing I still don’t.”
Something jagged tears through my chest.
Pain, want, need, grief.
