“That’s it, baby,” he murmured against my neck. “Take all of me. You feel so fucking good. Like home.”
My nails dug into his back as he moved, and he groaned in response, his hips never breaking their slow rhythm. His forearms bracketed my face, his eyes locked on mine, and Irealized I couldn’t look away. This wasn’t just sex; this was him claiming me, loving me, showing me everything he felt.
“I got you,” he whispered. “I’ve always got you. You’re safe with me, Trudy. Always.”
The intimacy of it, the way he said my name like a prayer, the way his body moved with such deliberate tenderness... it undid me. I came with my forehead pressed to his, our breathing synchronized, his name tumbling from my lips like a confession.
He followed moments later, burying his face in my neck as his body went taut, his arms tightening around me like he’d never let go.
“I love you,” he said into my hair. “So goddamn much it terrifies me.”
“I love you too,” I whispered back, clinging to him in the darkness.
Afterward, we lay tangled together in the darkness, his arm around me, my head on his chest. I could feel his heartbeat slowly returning to normal, could feel the rise and fall of his breathing as it evened out.
“Trudy,” he said after a long moment of silence.
“Hmm?”
“Will you read it with me? The last entry. I don’t want to read it alone.”
I lifted my head to look at him. In the darkness, I could just make out the outline of his features. “Of course.”
He reached over to the nightstand where he’d placed the journal, his hand steady as he handed it to me. The leather felt warm in my hands, heavy with secrets and pain and a woman’s final words. He turned on the soft lamp beside the bed, casting a gentle glow across the room.
“Go on, baby,” he said.
I opened the journal carefully, finding the last entry. My voice was steady as I read the words written in Christina’s careful script:
“I suppose this is goodbye, Stephen.”
IF YOUR READING THIS…
I suppose this is goodbye, Stephen.
There are no more secrets left now. No more confessions to make in the dead of night. No more ugly truths buried beneath decades of carefully constructed lies. I’ve emptied myself onto these pages, word by painful word, and given you everything I have left to give. Every memory, every regret, every moment of shame I’ve carried for so long.
At least, everything except this.
The one thing that mattered most. The one thing I kept locked away in the deepest part of my heart.
I loved you.
I know I’ve written those words before, scattered throughout these pages like breadcrumbs leading nowhere. But I don’t think I’ve ever explained them properly. I don’t think I ever told you what loving you actually meant to me. What it felt like. What it cost. What it gave me in return.
You were the first good thing to come into my life.
Not the first man I loved. Not the first person who showed me kindness. The first good thing. The first pure, uncomplicated, honest-to-God good thing that walked into my life and stayed there.
There is a difference. A profound one.
When I met you, I still believed I could outrun who I was. I still believed, with the desperate hope of someone clinging to wreckage in a storm, that I could escape my family simply by putting enough miles between myself and them. I thoughtif I stayed quiet enough, behaved well enough, wanted little enough, made myself small enough, I could somehow become someone else.
Someone better.
Someone clean.
Someone who wasn’t a Dougal.
