One evening I fell asleep accidentally against his shoulder while he read aloud from one of my books in the calmest voice imaginable. I woke sometime later half-curled against his chest beneath a blanket I didn't remember him putting over me.
After that, bit by bit, cuddling somehow became normal too.
Sometimes I would arrive at his apartment exhausted after work and find him already making tea, sleeves rolled up while music played quietly from the kitchen. He would take one look at my face and simply open his arms slightly in silent invitation. I started curling against him on the couch while we watched documentaries neither of us paid attention to anymore. Sometimes he would rest his chin lightly on top of my head whilereading, one arm wrapped loosely around my waist beneath a blanket.
Sometimes while cooking he would pull me gently by the wrist until I stood between his arms as he checked something on the stove behind me, pressing absentminded kisses into my hair and continuing conversations about completely unrelated topics.
One rainy evening after dinner, Bramwell sat beside me on the couch reading aloud, but I wasn't listening to the book anymore. I was listening to him breathe. Feeling the absentminded way his fingers moved against my arm while he read. The safety of him surrounding me so completely now that my body was learning not to mistake tenderness for danger every time it appeared.
I lifted my head slightly.
"Brams?"
He stopped reading immediately. "Hm?"
I intertwined our fingers slowly before I lost my nerve.
"I think..." My voice caught briefly. "I think I'm ready for more."
The silence that followed felt enormous.
Bramwell looked at me carefully, all humor fading into something gentler now, something almost unbearably patient.
''I just..." I swallowed once. "I need one more day."
For a second he only stared at me. Then the warmest smile I had ever seen spread slowly across his face, soft enough to make my chest ache.
"Whatever you need from me, it's yours," he said quietly.
But even while he pulled me closer afterward, pressing a lingering kiss against my forehead while his arms wrapped carefully around me beneath the blankets, part of me already knew there was still something I needed to do before tomorrow arrived.
Chapter 28: After the Ruins
I sat outside Ellis's house long enough for the engine to go cold.
The neighborhood looked exactly the same as I remembered it. The same quiet street lined with trimmed hedges and soft yellow porch lights. The same tree leaning slightly over the sidewalk near his driveway. Nothing had changed enough to match the strange tightness building slowly inside my chest.
For a moment I considered leaving. I already knew how exhausting this conversation would be before it even started. My throat felt tight with the effort of sentences I had been rehearsing for days, words repeating themselves over and over in my head until they no longer sounded natural.
I can do this.
Even now, sitting alone in my car, speaking felt like preparing for impact. I closed my eyes briefly and forced myself to breathe before finally stepping out into the cold evening air. By the time I reached the front door my pulse was beating so hard I could feel it behind my ribs.
Ellis opened the door almost immediately after I knocked.
The shock on his face lasted only a second before hope replaced it. His eyes moved over me carefully, almost disbelievingly, and for one terrible moment I knew exactly what he thought when he saw me standing there after nearly a year.
He thought I came back to him.
"April," he said softly, like even my name had become something fragile.
He stepped aside automatically to let me in, and I walked into the house before I could lose my nerve. My eyes caught on little things without permission: the gray blanket folded over the couch arm, the bookshelf I used to reorganize when anxious, the ceramic mug near the kitchen sink that I had bought him two birthdays ago.
For months after leaving, this house had existed in my mind like something sacred and ruined at the same time. Now it just felt quiet.
Ellis stayed near the doorway watching me with an expression I had never seen on him before, like he was measuring every movement carefully because he thought one wrong word or gesture might make me disappear again.
"You look good," he said after a moment, his voice uneven around the edges.
