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Because he knows.
Because he understands.
I swallow, my chest tightening, and then—“Finn,” I whisper, hesitant, fragile. “I remember that day. The day you found me in the woods.”
He nods slowly, his expression unreadable. “Aye, the first day I met you...”
I pause as a tiny weight presses against my chest. “It’s unthinkable that I ever forgot,” I murmur, my gaze drifting. “But the memories started coming back—first in dreams, and then, during my talk with Colina, the truth hit me. The horrible truth of it.”
My throat tightens. The truth sticks, but I force it out. “Finn… Colina hurt me that day. She’s the reason I was in the woods. The reason you had to come find me.”
His face darkens, tension rippling through his body. “What?”
I exhale shakily. “I followed her into the woods. I thought—” My voice cracks, but I push through, even as my hands tremble. “I thought she wanted to play. But she didn’t. She was leading me away, Finn. She was going to leave me there.”
The admission sours on my tongue, bitter and raw, and my breath stutters beneath its weight. “And if you hadn’t found me…” My voice drops to barely more than a whisper. “I might have never come back.”
Finn’s jaw clenches, his hands curling into fists. “I’m sure someone would have—”
“No, Finn.” I cut him off, my voice firm despite the tears brimming in my eyes. “You saved me then, just as you saved me the other day.”
The first tear slips free, trailing down my cheek, and then another. I don’t wipe them away. I let them fall, let the grief and gratitude settle between us. Let Finn see the depth of what he’s done for me—what he’s always done for me.
He swallows hard, looking as if he wants to say something, but nothing comes. Instead, he just nods, his expression raw, his eyes dark with something unreadable.
“Finn, what I said the other day—”
“Don’t,” he interrupts quickly, shaking his head. “You dinnae have to—”
“No!” I shout, cutting him off just as fast. My breath is ragged, my chest rising and falling too quickly. I force myself to even out, to steady my voice. “Finn, you deserve an apology.” My voice softens, but the conviction remains. “I didn’t mean a word of what I said to you. Not a single word. I owe you my life, twice over. And what I said… it wasn’t fair. It was selfish.”
My hands tighten at my sides, my heart pounding. “I was lashing out. I was trying to protect myself from something I didn’t even understand. Some idiotic form of self-preservation. But I see the light of it now. And I’m sorry, Finn. I’m so sorry.”
I take a breath, the next words tumbling out in a rush before I can lose my nerve. “And Marcus… I never really wanted him. Not before I left for Edinburgh. Not when he showed up again after I came home. Not even the night of my party. It would never be him.”
His lips part as if to argue, but I don’t let him. Instead, I push aside every morsel of hesitation, the heat of embarrassment flickering in the back of my mind. It’s nothing compared to the need to reach him. To feel something solid, something real. My dignity can wait—this moment cannot. Before he can react, I wrap my arms around his neck, holding on tightly.
For a heartbeat, he doesn’t move—just stands there, as if frozen by the weight of my touch. Then, slowly, he exhales, the breath shuddering from his chest. His arms come around me—not just to hold me, but to keep me. The warmth of him cascades through me, steady and unyielding, mooring me in a way I hadn’t known I needed. As if he alone can still the chaos that trembles beneath my skin, in a way I never knew I craved.
His voice is quiet when he speaks, but there’s no mistaking the weight of it, the promise woven into every syllable.
“You should know, there was never a world where I wouldnae have found you, Triona.”
He presses his cheek to my hair, his breath warm, his heartbeat strong against mine.
“And there’ll never be a world where I couldnae.”
Something inside me stirs, something I can’t name, can’t face—not now. But I feel it, thrumming beneath my skin, winding around my heart like an unseen thread, pulling taut in a way I never noticed before.
I close my eyes tight, gripping onto him as if he’s the only thing keeping me tethered to this world. And the truth of it? At this moment, he is.
“I wanted to become more than what others expected of me. But not like this.” My voice is a whisper, raw, scraped thin by grief. “Not when the price is in lives that can never be reclaimed. Not when all of you sacrificed everything—bound to this sick and twisted reality of mine.”
Finn’s grip on me tightens slightly, his voice low and steady. “Triona, none of us choose how the world changed, and that includes you. It happened to all of us. This isn’t something you did to anyone.”
I shake my head, but the motion feels weak. “It hurts,” I admit, my voice trembling. “It hurts that I didn’t get to say goodbye. That I’ll never get to say goodbye.” The thoughts crack open something deep inside me, raw and bleeding. My fingers tighten around the back of his neck, holding on as if he’s the only thing keeping me from breaking apart. “And if I keep thinking about it—if I let it sink too deep—I feel like… like it’ll devour me whole.”
Finn exhales, a sound both heavy and certain, before wrapping me closer. His lips press briefly to my hair, his voice a quiet vow against the storm raging inside me, as if his words alone could hold back the tide threatening to pull me under. “It won’t,” he murmurs. “Because I won’t let it.”
