I tried to smile, but it trembled. “Because…you mean it.”
His jaw flexed, and for a second I thought he might say something, but instead he just kissed me. Slow and deep…nothing like the frantic kind of kisses we’d shared earlier. This one was careful, almost worshipful.
When he pulled back, he rested his forehead against mine. “Of course I mean it.”
I couldn’t stop crying. It wasn’t the ugly, hiccupping kind of crying. It was quieter than that, the kind that comes when you’ve been holding too much inside for too long and suddenly someone gives you permission to let it go.
Matty brushed the tears away one by one, his fingers tracing down to my jaw. “I’m surprised you couldn’t feel it,” he whispered.
I swallowed hard. “Something like that feels more like a hope than a reality.”
His mouth curved into a small, disbelieving smile. “You make it sound impossible.”
“It felt impossible,” I admitted. “Before you.”
He searched my face, obviously not understanding what I meant. But then he kissed me again, softer this time, like a promise.
We lay there in silence, his hand running slow lines down my spine, my fingers tangled in the sheets. Every once in a while, his thumb would drift over the back of my neck, a quiet reminder that he was still aware of me.
I couldn’t stop staring at him…the faint stubble along his jaw, the way his lashes cast small shadows across his cheeks, the tiny scar above his brow I’d noticed from the first photo I’d ever seen of him.
He caught me staring and smiled. “What?”
I shook my head. “Nothing.”
He tilted his head. “You’re thinking something.”
I hesitated, then said quietly, “Just that I never thought I’d end up here.”
His smile softened. “With me?”
“Withyou,” I said, my voice small. “And you saying things like that.”
Matty’s expression shifted; something tender flickered behind his eyes. “Get used to it,” he said, “because I’m not planning on stopping.”
I laughed softly, the sound half choked by tears. “You always know exactly what to say.”
He leaned in until his lips brushed my ear. “Only with you.”
I closed my eyes, the warmth of his voice sinking into me, wrapping around all the broken, jagged places that had been empty for so long.
I didn’t tell him that I’d spent years dreaming of someone saying those words. That I’d built entire fantasies around the idea of his love.
The last of the daylight faded, leaving us in the hush of his room. The hum of the ceiling fan. The steady rhythm of his breathing.
He shifted once, his arm tightening around me, and then his breaths evened out, deep and slow…sleep taking him easily, like it always must for people who didn’t live inside their own heads.
Another tear slipped free before I could stop it, sliding down my temple onto his pillow. The thought came quiet but sharp, cutting through the softness of the moment.
He never asked.
He hadn’t asked why I was standing in front of his house this morning, trembling and half crazed. He didn’t wonder how I knew where he lived, or why I’d been there at all.
Because he didn’t really know me.
He couldn’t love me, not the real me, because he hadn’t seen her yet.
I closed my eyes, letting the dark press in. His heartbeat pulsed against my back, warm and steady, and still…
