“Listen to me, Julian Elijah Wolfe.”
My breath caught so hard it hurt. Hearing my full name from him did something to me. It didn’t feel like correction; it felt like being held in place by love so strong it scared me.
Tears spilled before I could stop them: hot, relentless, slipping down my face without permission.
“I love you,” he whispered. His voice cracked on it, just slightly, as if it cost him something to say it this firmly. “There is no version of our story where you walk out that door alone.”
And that broke me. Slowly, like something inside me finally gave up trying to stay intact.
My hands curled into his shirt without me thinking about it, holding on too tight.
“I don’t know how to do this,” I whispered, barely audible. “I don’t know how to leave you.”
My voice collapsed at the end, turning into something raw, small, and completely unguarded.
I breathed in his scent, pulling it deep into my lungs until my body finally surrendered to total exhaustion, slipping into a deep, dreamless sleep in his arms.
* * *
It steadies me for a second, just a second, and then it makes it worse. Because I know what it means to love him like this. To need him like this. To want to stay so badly it hurts to breathe around the thought of leaving.
I need to keep him safe.
I need to keep Deck and Finn safe too.
The thought lands heavier each time I repeat it in my head, like I’m trying to convince myself it isn’t already decided. But it is. Somewhere inside me, the choice has already been made, even if my heart hasn’t caught up yet.
I know what I have to do.
And it breaks me apart to admit it. Not cleanly or neatly. It feels like something tearing, something splitting right down the center of me while I’m still lying here, him holding me.
Because I can’t let Adrian find me.
Not here. Not near them. Not anywhere that touches their lives.
If he does, he won’t stop at me. He never has.
My fingers tighten slightly against CJ’s shirt, like I can anchor myself in him for a few more seconds before I let this go. Just a few more seconds of pretending I get to stay.
But I already know the truth.
I need to run.
28
CJ
The jug goes quiet again. The kitchen fills with the low hum of the voices coming from the couch. Finn and Deck arrived not long ago, and they are sitting with Eli while I make tea and coffee for Deck and me.
I stand there with my mug in hand, letting the heat seep into my fingers, but it doesn’t settle anything inside me. I am still heavy with him. With Eli. With the way his voice cracked when he said he should leave. With the way he looked at me like love and fear were fighting for space in the same breath.
And then the nightmare.
I can still see him in it. Still feel the way he fought me for a second before he realized it was me. That moment where he came back into his body and collapsed against my chest, like he didn’t know how to exist outside of fear anymore.
The memory sits under my skin like a bruise that hasn’t healed. Everything does, and I feel the weight of it like a blanket.
I know what he was really saying last night. He thinks running will fix it. That distance will make Adrian disappear. That if he removes himself from the equation, the rest of us stay untouched.
