That lands.
Compassion without surrender.
I look at the table. At the plates we set. At the small cake waiting on the counter.
Twelve years of wanting this, and I’ll be damned if I let someone’s delusion wedge itself between us.
“Okay,” I say finally.
Ollie’s thumb brushes my jaw once. “We eat,” he says.
“And then?”
“And then,” he replies evenly, “we tighten the boundaries.”
He pulls out my chair for me like nothing has changed, like this is still our safe space.
And in every way that matters, it is.
25
OLLIE
I wake before the alarm,which isn’t unusual. My body has been trained into early mornings for years now, even on off days.
Rafe is still asleep beside me.
He’s on his side, one arm thrown across my waist, fingers curled there like he anchored himself there sometime in the night and never let go. His hair is a mess. His mouth is slightly parted. There’s a faint crease between his brows that tells me he didn’t sleep as deeply as he pretended.
I watch him breathe.
The package sits somewhere in my mind like a file I haven’t closed. The silver marker scrawled across glass. The annotated lyrics. The guitar pick with words scratched into the back.
Still yours.
I don’t feel fear when I think about it. I feel something steadier than that.
Protective. Irritated.
Done.
Rafe shifts slightly, strengthening his hold for a second before his breathing evens out again. I slide my hand up his back slowly, deliberately, reminding myself that he’s here. Solid and real.
For a long time, I convinced myself that leaving was protection. That if I stepped away before things exploded, I could spare him collateral damage. Spare him from the pressure, from the scrutiny, from the weight of my fear.
I told myself I was being strategic and responsible.
What I was, mostly, was terrified.
Terrified that I would be the thing that ruined him.
Now, lying here with his arm draped over me and the memory of that box still sharp in my mind, I recognize the difference between fear and responsibility.
Fear runs. Responsibility stays.
The alarm goes off softly on my nightstand, and I reach to silence it before it can disturb him. He makes a small sound anyway, something halfway between a groan and a protest, and presses his face into my shoulder.
“Don’t,” he mutters.
