“Yes.”
It wasn’t even a thought.
Rhys made a low noise, and I kicked his shin under the counter without looking.
“He knows when I’m about to spiral before I do. He just… fixes it.”
Not fixes.
Finds.
Hefindsme.
“He touches me and it’s just—” I swallowed. “Everything stops.I stop.I don’t feel… wrong around him. Or too much.”
My fingers flexed once.
“I’m just… me.”
The words were thin compared to what they were trying to hold.
It wasn’t enough.
My tongue pressed hard against the back of my teeth, frustration rising sharp and fast.
It wasn’t something I could break down into parts and hand over.
Not something I could make sound normal.
It was like trying to explain what blue looked like to someone who’d never seen it. Or what water tasted like.
You could saycold.
You could sayclean.
But that wasn’t it.
It was just—there.
My fingers curled tight against my thighs, nails digging at denim.
It existed now, under my skin, and in the way my body settled the second he touched me.
There weren’t words for that—only the absence of everything that used to be there.
Rhys set his spoon down with a quiet clink, leaning back in his stool. For once, he didn’t jump in with something sharp. “Arch.”
His expression had shifted—still him, but something denser underneath it now. “I’m giving you shit, but you know I’m happy for you, right? You look a little insane. But in a… good way.”
My mouth twitched.
“You’re—” he gestured vaguely, searching, “calmer. Less ready to bolt at any given second.”
“Archie,” my mom beckoned, and when I looked over, her expression had gone thoughtful in a different way.
“I’d like to meet him.”
My stomach flipped, but it wasn’t dread. Not exactly. More like… a jolt of something protective.
