The corner of his mouth twitches, like he wants to make a joke to ease the tension, and I hate that old reflex—the half-smile he used to hide behind. I always did. My hand twitches with the urge to slap it away. But then he swallows, and the façade drops, leaving the broken boy beneath—the line etched across his forehead, the slump in his shoulders.
“I’ll keep crawling. Until I’m exactly where you need me to be,” he vows.
My pulse stutters. The stupid part of me—the still-broken girl who used to count how many times he blinked in a conversation just to feel closer to him—wants to fall into his arms again.
Wants to kiss the apology off his lips and pretend it never happened.
But I can’t. Iwon’t.
Not after what he did.
Not after what hedidn’tdo.
God, it hurts to be near him. It hurts more than his absence and the gaping void he left behind.
“You’ll crawl, you’ll beg. You’ll show me, with actions, not words, just how much you missed me. You’ll make it so everyone who turned their backs on me will have to look me in the face and believe me because you made them.” I list my demands like a challenge, wanting to see if he means what he says or if he’ll balk at me insisting he follow through. If he thought I wouldn’t test him, then he clearly knows fuck all about me.
“What if—”
“There is nowhat if,” I cut him off, dropping my hand from his face as I stand, putting distance between us.
“Either you do it, Matt, or I walk. That’s it.”
My voice stays steady, even as my chest burns. “Nice gestures and pretty speeches don’t mean a thing anymore. You’re a year too late for half-measures, and if there’s any hope left at all, it won’t survive you doing this halfway.”
He studies me as though I’m a riddle and, for a second, I wonder if I’ve pushed him too far. And then determination slams down behind his eyes, his spine straightens even as he dips his chin, and he slowly unfolds to his feet. For a single heartbeat, I’m positive this is it. He’s going to stride out of this hotel room and my life for good, and I’m helpless to do anything other than brace myself for the heartbreak coming my way.
“I told you I won’t ask for forgiveness,” he says quietly. His fingers tug at his suit jacket before he lets it slide from his shoulders and unholsters his gun, setting that down too. He undoes his cuffs, rolling up the sleeves of his white shirt until the tattooed lily on his arm stares back at me—an old ache, a reminder of the boy who loved me so fiercely he got the flower I’m named after etched into his skin.
“I know I don’t deserve it,” he continues, voice steady but wrecked. “But I’m asking for a chance. A real one. To prove I still know how to love you. How to choose you. How to treasure what I almost destroyed.”
For a moment, I forget how to breathe. The sound of his jacket hitting the floor is too loud, too final, like something breaking loose between us. He stands there, unarmed, and it shouldn’t matter, but it does.
His words hang in the air, soft and blasphemous.Love you. Choose you. Treasure you.Three phrases I’ve dreamt of and dreaded in equal measure. They sound like prayers from a man who’s only just remembered how to kneel.
My pulse betrays me first. Then my anger. Both flare and twist until I can’t tell where one ends and the other begins. I want to scoff, to throw every cruel truth I’ve been forced to swallow back in his face. But instead, I just stare at the man who once burned down everything I was, standing there like he’s willing to burn for me now.
And that’s the problem, isn’t it? He’s always known how to set fires, but he's never learned how to stay and watch them burn. No one ever taught him.
In a single, slow, deliberate movement, he lowers himself to his knees, inches from his jacket. The soft thud of his knees hitting the floor is like surrender, a dull thud that rattles through me. His palms rest heavily on his thick thighs, fingers flexing once before he bows his head.
The hotel room hums with the weight of it—the soft collapse of him under me, no hesitation, no fight. Watching him offer his surrender so effortlessly, without any kind of hesitation or second guessing has a tendril of hope unfurling deep inside my chest. We just might have a shot in hell after all.
“I needed you,” I whisper, my voice shaking with fury as I take slow, deliberate steps away from him, turning my back just long enough to steady myself. “And you chose silence. You chose your image. Your family. Your marriage contract. You left me buried in the wreckage while you played the part of the perfect son.”
“I know,” he chokes out behind me. “And I hate myself for it.”
“Don’t waste your breath hating yourself,” I spit, spinning on my heel to face him. “Earn me. Show me I’m more than your regret. Show me you’re worth trusting again. Because right now? You’re just a ghost who finally remembered how to bleed.”
He lifts his head, eyes glassy. “Tell me how,” he says, voice cracking. “I’ll do anything, Lil’.Anything.”
“Tell me why I should let you back in,” I say. “Give me one good reason I should let you touch me again. One good reason I should even entertain this.”
My voice stays steady, but my hands tremble at my sides. Seeing him on his knees in front of me sends a dangerous current through my veins.
For too long, everyone else has had the upper hand.
Not anymore.
