So why did she feel like she was about to shatter?
Because nothing is resolved.
The thought sliced through her contentment like a knife. They'd had incredible sex. They'd made confessions. But they hadn't actually talked. Hadn't figured out what this meant, what came next, how two people with such fundamentally different needs could build something lasting.
Tarmek needed stability. Roots. Routine.
Edie needed?—
What do you need?
She'd always said she needed freedom. Movement. The ability to leave before things got complicated.
But lying here in the early morning quiet, watching Tarmek sleep, she wasn't sure that was true anymore.
Maybe you just needed an excuse to run before anyone could hurt you.
The thought was too big, too frightening to examine in the fragile light of dawn.
So she did what she always did.
She ran.
Moving carefully, barely breathing, she extracted herself from Tarmek's embrace. He stirred slightly, mumbling something unintelligible, but didn't wake. She found her dress crumpled on the floor, her heels kicked under the bed. She dressed as quietly as possible, heart pounding with every rustle of fabric.
You should wake him. You should stay. You should?—
She couldn't.
Not yet.
Not when her chest felt like it was cracking open, when her eyes were burning with tears she refused to shed, when every instinct screamed at her to flee before the weight of her feelings crushed her entirely.
She needed to think.
She needed space.
She needed?—
Him. You need him, and that's what's terrifying.
She paused at the bedroom door, looking back at his sleeping form. So large. So solid. So incredibly, achingly there.
I love you too, she thought.
But she couldn't say it. Couldn't make herself that vulnerable, not when everything still felt so uncertain.
Tomorrow, she promised silently. We'll figure this out tomorrow.
And then she slipped out of the room, down the hallway, through the front door that she closed with agonizing care.
The cold morning air hit her like a slap.
And the tears came.
She cried silently, shoulders shaking, as she walked to her camper in last night's rumpled dress and smeared makeup. She cried for the mess they'd made, for the conversations they hadn't had, for the terrifying possibility that she might actually want to stay.
She cried because she loved him.
