The porch seems to tilt. My throat constricts painfully. “Rafe?—”
He shakes his head, anger breaking through the careful restraint like a crack in glass. “Jesus, Ollie.”
“Don’t,” I whisper. “Please don’t do that.”
Rafe’s laugh is bitter. “Don’t do what? Say it out loud? Say what this is?” His eyes burn into mine. “We were supposed to be here together. Today. On purpose. You were supposed to meet them like my husband. Not—” He gestures toward the door, toward the house, toward the whole damn scene. “Not like some stranger who happened to show up late with a black eye and a friend who knows more about my marriage than my mother does.”
The words punch straight through me. My chest feels too small for my lungs. “I know,” I say, voice shaking. “I know. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“You keep saying that,” Rafe says, voice rough. “And then you keep making me swallow it.”
“That’s not fair,” I say automatically, because I’m already drowning and my body is desperate for a lifeline. “I’m trying. You think I’m not trying?”
His eyes flash. “Then why does it always end up here? Why does it always end up with me having to be the one who understands? The one who waits? The one who gets pushed into whatever shape you need so you don’t have to face your own fear?”
My throat closes. I want to deny it. I want to argue. I want to claw back any ground I can find. But he’s not wrong, and that’s the worst part.
“I’m not doing this because I don’t love you,” I say, voice cracking. “I’m not doing this because I don’t want you.”
Rafe’s expression tightens, pain cutting through the anger.
“Since the moment we met,” I continue, forcing the words out, because if I don’t say them now, I never will, “you knew I didn’t want to come out. You knew that. I didn’t hide it from you.”
He stares at me, jaw clenched.
“I don’t want to be the first,” I say, the honesty ripping through me like a wound. “Honestly, maybe not even the second. I don’t want to be the headline. I don’t want to be the story.”
My skin prickles, sweat breaking out along my spine despite the mild air. My heart pounds hard enough that my bruised eye throbs in time with it.
“Just thinking about it makes me feel sick,” I admit, swallowing around the tightness in my throat. “It doesn’t mean I’m ashamed of you. It doesn’t mean I’m ashamed of me. I just—” I shake my head, helpless. “I can’t do it yet. I can’t.”
Rafe’s eyes glisten for a second, quick as a flicker of light, and then he looks away like he refuses to let me see it. When he looks back, the anger has drained into something quieter.
Something more dangerous.
Sadness.
He exhales slowly. “Okay.”
The word is soft, but it terrifies me more than the yelling.
“Okay?” I repeat, because my brain doesn’t understand. “What do you mean, okay?”
Rafe’s gaze holds mine. “I mean… okay. I hear you.”
My pulse spikes. “Rafe?—”
“You should go home,” he says.
The sentence is simple. It’s also a blade. My stomach drops so hard I feel nauseous. “What?” I whisper.
He gestures toward the driveway, toward Marco waiting in the car. “Go back to LA,” Rafe says, voice steady but low. “We’ll… we’ll take a breath.”
My heart lurches violently. Panic floods my veins in a way that makes the edges of my vision shimmer. “What are you saying?” I blurt, the words tumbling out raw and desperate. “What—are you—saying?”
Rafe watches me carefully, like he can see the panic rising, like he’s trying not to push me over the edge. His voice softens by a fraction. “I’m saying I love you,” he says.
I freeze.
