I don’t even think before pulling her into me.
“You are that man,” she says quietly against my chest. “Just like I’m the woman learning how to actually let somebody help me.” She tips her head back enough to look at me. “We’ll figure it out together, okay? You’re the one who shows up. I’m the one learning not to do everything alone.”
A smile pulls at my mouth before I can stop it. “Sounds terrifying.”
She giggles. “Absolutely horrifying.”
My arms tighten around her. “I’m really glad you came here. To me.”
She tilts her head. “Why?”
“Because this is where it started,” I say, as her eyes lift to mine. “And I don’t want to do this anywhere else,” I add, voice quieter now, but steadier. “I need it to be here.”
I step closer. Enough that she knows I’m not going anywhere this time.
“Since the moment I met you…” I start, then shake my head slightly. “No, before that. From the first second I really looked at you, I knew something was different.”
Her eyes flicker, but she doesn’t interrupt.
“I could see you,” I say, quieter now. “And I don’t mean that in some…surface way. I mean, I could actually look at you. Hold your gaze and stay there, connected. That doesn’t happen for me. Not like that.”
I let out a breath, steadying myself.
“You give me somewhere to land, Vivian. Like…a base. A place where I can park everything for a minute and—breathe.” My jaw tightens slightly. “And I didn’t even realize how much I needed that until you were there.”
My gaze drops for a second, then comes back to hers.
“But I’m not perfect,” I say, more firmly now. “And when everything fell apart the other day, when I dropped all of it—I panicked.”
I swallow. “All I could think was… how could someone like you ever fall in love with someone like me? When I can’t even get it together enough to show up for you for one day the way I wanted to.”
“Ty, no,” she says into my chest, pulling back just enough to look at me. “How could Inotbe falling in love with you?”
The words hit hard. Fast.
“You’ve done nothing but show me who you are,” she continues, her voice steady but full. “No pretending. Just you.”
She lets out a small breath, shaking her head.
“You make me laugh. You’re kind and charming, and the kind of person who is there even when everything tips upside down. And it’s like…” She glances away for half a second, then back. “Like the world just kept putting us in front of each other, over and over again, until we paid attention.”
A small, disbelieving smile tugs at her mouth as her hand lifts slightly, brushing my chest.
“You have this way of seeing people,” she says. “Of reading what’s underneath everything. That empathy you have, it gets to me. In a way I didn’t expect.”
Her expression changes, something more vulnerable slipping in.
“I thought I was the one who messed things up. That lettingyou help me—” She stalls. “I was worried that I made everything harder for you.”
I shake my head immediately. “You didn’t…”
“We did this together,” she says gently. “And we’re not going to let it get there again.”
There’s a quiet beat between us as I mull over the words that have been on repeat in my head for days now. I look at her sitting there beside me, and it hits me all over again. It’s the crashing of a wave that is terrifying, grounding the certainty of it.
Somewhere along the way, she’s become the first person I want when things hurt. The first person I look for in every room. The only person who’s ever made my brain feel like it could unclench for a second.
And suddenly, keeping it in feels harder than saying it.
