My chest aches for the broken boy in front of me and for the girl who loved him anyway.
“I wanted to believe you,” he says hoarsely. “But I was so fucking afraid that loving you would make me like him. So I let myself believe the worst. And I thought… staying away would make it easier for you.”
“Don’t you dare say any of this was for my sake,” I whisper, fury and grief tangling in my throat. “You stayed silent because it was easier than choosing me. Because your path was already mapped out and I didn’t fit on it.”
He closes his eyes; his breath comes shallow. When he opens them, every inch of regret and self-loathing is there for me to see. The room crackles, years of hurt and months of yearning mixing like a powder keg.
I want to hate him. I want to slam the door and never look back. But some ghosts don’t leave—they linger where they always have, quiet and stubborn. They haunt the corners of your sleep and the hollow where you used to keep hope.
I take a shaky breath. The weight of years presses on me, but a small, desperate spark stirs, maybe—maybe—things can be different. Not because he said sorry, not because he wants me back tonight, but because the truth is coming out and he’s standing here, finally owning it.
“I don’t know if I can trust you,” I admit finally.
He nods, the motion shaky, almost painful.
“Then tell me how to earn it,” he says, voice breaking. “Tell me what you need me to do.”
My laugh comes out hollow—brittle, sharp, and nothing like the sound he used to pull from me.
“You start by stopping everything you did in secret,” I say, voice tight. “You start by handing me back the life you stole. You start by telling the truth about everything. And even then…” I swallow hard. “Even then, it might not be enough.”
For a second, something flickers across his face—panic, regret, the desperate urge to fix what can’t be neatly stitched back together. He looks like he might argue, might promise me the world, might fall to his knees and beg me to let him try.
Instead, he exhales—slow, wrecked—the sound heavy with consequence. His chin dips in a single, deliberate nod.
And just like that, the air between us changes.
The future feels thin and dangerous, stretched tight like a thread that might snap with one wrong breath. I don’t know where we go from here, if we go anywhere at all. But for now, we stand in the silence between apology and consequence, between the ruins we made and the hope we don’t dare name.
Two people who never stopped loving each other, trying to navigate the damage that loving in silence left behind.
Chapter 31
Leaving Turin to come here felt like a risk from the start—a reckless, probably desperate, but necessary risk. There was every chance she’d slam the door in my face, tell me to disappear and block me from her life for good. But seeing the way her face folded in on itself, knowing I caused that, hurts more than any knife or bullet ever has.
I stand there, breathing hard, eyes fixed on the wood grain as if it might split and let me in. She’d disappeared into the bathroom—said she needed a minute—at least ten minutes ago. My hand hangs half-raised, curled into a fist I don’t remember making. If I were a decent man, I’d walk away. Give her the space she thinks she wants. Let her breathe without me crowding the air.
But there isn’t time for that. Not anymore.
“Lily.” I rap my knuckle against the door.
“Fuck off, Matt.” Her answer is immediate and sharp enough to cut.
I knock again. “Please. Five minutes. You can yell, hell you can throw things. But let me talk.”
Silence stretches. The door creaks open just enough for her to peek out, jaw tight, chin tilted up. Her eyes are red-rimmed even as they glare at me; she’s defiant, utterly wrecked, still in her dress, hair loose and wild. I forget how to breathe. Lily has always been beautiful, but this version of her—fierce, and confident in her own skin—is breathtaking. Seeing her free to bloom away from Jen’s venom is just another thing I’m kicking myself for missing.
She steps through, bringing the chill of her silence with her. She leans against the frame like a warning—one wrong move and she’ll shove the door open and disappear.
“I want to make things right.” My voice comes out softer than I intended.
“In five minutes?” she laughs, bitter and raw. “What are you now, a magician?”
Her voice trembles as she continues. “Jonathan publicly denounced me. The whole Points—every one of those bastards—turned on me, like I was complicit. And you think five minutes is enough to fix that?”
As much as now is not the time, I have to bite back a laugh at her sass.
“No. But it’s a start.”
