“A warning,” I repeat, because my brain is too short-staffed to compute any of this.
“Yes.”He steps a little closer.“I’m telling you I’m here.That I’m not going to hurt you.That I’ll show up—fully.Not as the guy I was before.The version of me that used silence as a weapon and treated people like they were invisible.”His voice softens.“I’m trying to be someone who doesn’t run.Even when it’s hard.Even when I’m too fucking scared.”
Something in me splinters a little.
My breath hitches, but I mask it by looking away.Not that it helps.Not when I can still feel him in the space between us.Not when everything inside me is shoutingDon’t do this!while simultaneously wondering what he smells like up close.
And me?
God.
I don’t sway into the arms of tragic musicians and whisper about second chances.
I’m the girl who picks up what’s broken.Who volunteers to carry the ruins so no one else has to?
But this man?
He’s offering a future I stopped believing in.One stitched with quiet mornings and music that isn’t trying to outrun itself.
And I don’t know if I’m brave enough to reach for it.
I cross my arms tighter, like maybe if I hold myself close enough, I won’t do something impulsive—like touch his mouth or ask him to repeat it, but this time slower, softer, with his hand on my waist.
“I don’t need anyone to save me,” I murmur, though it sounds hollow even to my own ears.
“I know,” he says.“That’s not why I’m here.”
Then—like it’s the easiest thing in the world—he leans forward and kisses the tip of my nose.The contact is brief.Barely there.But my lungs stutter like they forgot how to work.
“Let’s pick up Mila,” he says, threading his fingers through mine like it’s normal.Like we’re something.“We can talk more later.”
I don’t move.
“You can’t just warn me that you’re ...what was it?”My voice hitches.“‘Falling?’Like it’s a weather update?”
He doesn’t blink.Doesn’t smile.His answer is quiet.Factual.
“That’s what it feels like,” he says.“And I thought you should know before I do something confusing.Like show up more.Or ...look at you too long.Or care too much and not realize I’m doing it out loud.”
Something in me pulls taut, an invisible thread catching between who I’ve been and who I almost remember how to be.
“Let’s go, Mara.We don’t want to be late,” he reminds me.
And that’s how I end up walking down the street, hand in hand with a man who just told me he’s falling for me.
And all I can think is:
What the fuck just happened?
Because I can’t lie.I want this.The feel of his hand in mine, the ease in his voice when he says we, the notion that someone might choose me with all my fault lines showing.
But want doesn’t guarantee safety.
Want has a history of slipping through my fingers the second I start to believe in it.
What if I lean in—and he pulls away?
What if I let this in, let him in, and the ground shifts beneath me again?
