We all did, came another text.
Tears Nolan hadn’t cried yet burst forward, a desperate sob escaping him as the dam broke and the weight of everything he’d lost finally hit all at once.
Not just Finn, but the family he’d been accepted into at the sanctuary. He’d been so goddamnhappythere, but without Finn, that was gone, too.
And Finn. Finn was gone. And tomorrow morning Nolan would wake up without him, and run his hand over the empty spot where he should have been, andmisshim.
Nolan folded his arms on his desk and let his head fall into them, gasping and sobbing as all the loss and sadness and anger—at Gavin, at himself—spilled over, his body shaking with each shuddering breath.
It felt like hours before he was done, his throat sore and his eyes red and stinging. The sleeves of his shirt were soaked with tears, and his brain was pounding in his skull.
Everything hurt.
And no amount of crying could fix what he’d done, either. There was nopointin crying.
Finally ready to pull himself together, Nolan went back to the text Ezra had sent and considered his response.
I missed you too,he sent.
All of you, he added.
Please tell Finn I’m sorry, he finished, stomach knotting up at the thought of how badly he’d hurt him. He knew he’d said exactly the wrong thing.
Hell, he’d known he was saying itwhilehe was saying it, but Gavin had gotten into his head.
He’dletGavin get into his head.
I’ll pass it on, but you gotta tell him yourself,Ezra texted back.
Which was true. Finn deserved an apology regardless of whether or not he was likely to forgive Nolan.
Nolan even knew exactly what that apology needed to look like. He knew what would make this right—or at least, what had the bestchanceof making it right.
All he had to do now was work up the courage to go through with it.
