My jaw clicked shut. I tried to find the words, any words, but they’d abandoned me. I settled for the truth, ugly and raw. “I thought I’d fucked everything up. I thought you’d hate me, or worse.”
He stared at me, unblinking. “I didn’t hate you. I just wanted to know if it mattered, if I mattered.”
The space between us was a canyon, but he bridged it first, stepping forward until we were close enough to share a shadow. He looked up at me, daring me to flinch.
I didn’t.
We stood like that, the sun sliding down and the world holding its breath.
“I don’t want anything from you,” Carter said, voice softer now. “I just—wanted to tell you in person.”
The urge to protect, to claim, to fix, boiled up in my chest. Every instinct screamed to pull him in, to make him safe. But I remembered the look in his eyes that night, the way he’d never been owned by anyone, not even his own family.
So I did the only thing I could. I put my hand over his, warm against the curve of his belly, and asked, “Are you okay?”
He laughed, a sound I hadn’t heard in months. “No. Not even close.”
“Me either,” I said.
He nodded, as if that was all the answer he needed.
The sun dipped lower, painting everything in fire. I didn’t know what would happen next, or if I even deserved another chance. But for the first time since Carter left, I could breathe.
We stood together, two broken halves, with a world of possibility balanced between us.
And I finally understood: some things you can’t fix with work, or words, or wounds. Some things you just have to hold onto, no matter how much they scare you.
The last of the sun disappeared behind the hills, and I let myself hope.
Tomorrow, maybe, I’d tell him everything.
