It wasn't easy for me. It still isn't. I am writing it down because my mouth won't make the shape of it when you're in front of me and I owe you better than silence.
I love you, Bane. I love you the way you love—steady, certain, without asking for anything back. I love that you paid Wren's rent for two years and told me like it was nothing. I love that you check on Zero when he goes dark. I love that you read the inventory reports even when Atlas emails you at four in the morning. I love that you held me in a cell and made it feel safe.
I should have stayed that night. I should have said it back.
I'm saying it now because I might not get to say it in person, and you deserve to have it from me even if it's late. Even if it's on paper. Even if my handwriting is terrible and Zero would make fun of me for the tear stains.
You told me once that you're not going anywhere. That you've got me. That's the order.
Here's mine: I've got you too. I have had you since the facility. I didn't know what to call it then. I do now.
I love you. I love you. I love you.
I'm sorry it took me this long.
—Max
I read it three times.
The first time my eyes move across the words and my brain processes them as language and my body doesn’t react because it is holding itself very still. My heart doesn’t process his words yet.
The second time the bracing fails.
The third time I am sitting on the edge of my bed with the letter in both hands and my elbows on my knees and my head bowed and something in my chest has cracked open like a dam giving way—a release. My heart is torn apart, shreds inside me and I can barely breathe though the bittersweet ache.
He loves me.
He has loved me since the facility.
He ran from the couch that night because no one had ever said it to him without obligation. He sat in his room afterward with the bond humming between us and tried to find the words and couldn't and carried that failure around for weeks like a stone in his pocket.
My sweet, tortured, gentle Max. FUCK!
And then he wrote it down. Three times on the page, because once wasn't enough. Because Max is a writer and he knows that repetition is emphasis and hewantedme to understand that this was not a slip or a concession or a thing he was saying because the moment demanded it.
He meant it.
He loves me.
I fold the letter. I put it in my back pocket. I press my hand flat against it.
I go find my brothers because if I sit in my room without doing anything for a minute longer I’m going to lose my fucking mind.
Atlas is where I left him. Kitchen table. Phone face-down. His hands flat on the granite. But something has changed—his letter is open in front of him. Cream paper, same as mine. He found his.
He looks up when I come in. His eyes are red. Whatever Max wrote to him has gotten past the processing and into the part of him that still bleeds.
"You got one too," he says. Not a question.
"Yeah."
His eyes drop to my pocket. To the hand still pressed against it. He doesn't ask what mine said. I don't ask what his said. Somehow we both already know.
"He wrote these before." Atlas's voice is careful. Measured. Holding something back. "Before the driveway. Before Margot. He planned something, Bane. He slid theseunder our doors and then he walked out of the house. Whatever happened after—Margot, Richard—that wasn't his plan. He had something else in mind."
The realization settles into me. Cold. Heavy.
"Where's Zero?"
