She pulls back enough to look up at me, her eyes wet. “What do we do now?”
I already know the answer. I’ve known it since the first time I realized what I felt and understood exactly how impossible it was. I just never wanted to say it out loud.
“We do nothing.”
Her eyes widen. “What?”
“We don’t do anything.”
Her expression tightens. “Dane?—”
I need to say the words before I do something stupid. “We can’t change how we feel. But we can’t act on it either.”
She stares at me, shaking her head. “So that’s it?”
I nod once. “That’s it. We just have to live with it.”
But it’s not that simple, and we both know it.
“When we were kids, all I ever wanted was to be your sister. Now there’s nothing I want less.”
Silence settles over the shelter again, heavier now that everything’s out in the open. The line between us has never been clearer.
For a while, neither of us moves.
She stays tucked against me, her head under my chin, my arms around her like they settled there on their own. We’ve never been this close. Not like this.
For years we shared the same space but kept our distance—separate sides, separate routines, only crossing paths when we had to.
Now she’s here, against me in a way that makes it hard to think about anything else. And neither of us is ready to be the one who lets go.
She shifts, settling in. Without thinking, I pull her a little closer. It feels instinctive. Protective. Something I probably shouldn’t look at too closely.
We stay like that, quiet in the dark.
Too close.
And somehow, still not close enough.
Chapter 11
Charlotte Gallagher
Time drags.Neither of us says anything. Dane’s arms are still wrapped around me, my cheek resting against his chest as I listen to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat.
Whatever just tore through us has gone quiet now. Fragile, even. We said things we were never supposed to say.
And then he drew the line.
Nothing changes. We live with it.
He thinks this is over. But lying here like this, feeling him pressed against me, I know I can’t accept that. The idea of pretending this doesn’t exist, pretending I feel nothing when he looks at me, twists something deep in my chest.
“You’re so sure about what Ryan said, but we don’t actually know. He overheard a conversation. That’s all. He could’ve gotten it wrong. Maybe he only caught part of it.”
Dane doesn’t respond.
“Maybe Ryan misunderstood. He was only sixteen, Dane. Sixteen-year-old boys aren’t exactly known for careful listening.”
