"I didn't open the door when you knocked," I said. "Four days ago. You were in the hallway, and I had my hand on the door,and I didn't open it. I've been telling myself it was about giving you space." I let the breath come. "It was about being scared."
I looked at him, and I let him see what was underneath.
"I'm scared you're going to leave. I'm scared you're going to stay and shrink. I'm scared of needing you, and the version I'm most scared of is the one where you stay, and I let you, and it works. Because if it works, then everything I've built my life around is wrong. Every wall, every refusal, every time I told myself that not needing anyone was the same as being strong. If this works, then all of that was just fear, and I've been living inside fear for sixteen years and calling it independence.
"I've been my mother's daughter for twenty-eight years, Duke. I don't know how to be anyone else. I'm going to have to learn." I swallowed. "I'm sorry. For the closed door."
I gave him what I had.
Duke listened. His jaw worked once. His hand came up to his face, his thumb and forefinger pressing the bridge of his nose, and it stayed there for a beat. When his hand came down, his eyes were bright and wet, and he wasn't hiding it.
Then he spoke. Plain. No grin. No charm. His voice.
"I withdrew from Nepal. The day after the morning in your kitchen. I drove to my parents'. My dad said something I needed to hear. I came home. I sat at my kitchen table at four in the morning and clicked the button. The slot is gone. It's done."
He looked at me.
"The mountain's still going to be there. Next year, the year after. I can climb it anytime." His voice was steady, but I could hear what was underneath it, the hours of ceiling-staring that had put the words in that order. "Nova's going to laugh for the first time. She's going to stand up. She's going to say a word. Each of those things happens once. I either see them, or I miss them, and I'm not missing them."
A minute passed. His voice was quiet.
"I'm not telling you this so you'll feel guilty. I'm telling you because you needed to know."
He looked at me.
"You and Nova are not the thing I gave up. You're the thing I found."
I believed him. I believed him with my whole body, the way I believed a patient's vitals when the numbers were good. He was standing in my living room telling me the truth, and the believing was the door I'd been afraid to open.
I crossed the room to him.
I put my hands on his face. His jaw under my palms, the stubble rough against my fingers, his skin warm. His eyes closed for one second when my hands touched him, and I watched the week come off his face, the tension in his jaw releasing under my palms.
I kissed him.
Slow. Quiet. Decided. His arms came around me, and I felt his hands spread flat across my back, pulling me in, and the pull was sure. The patience in it broke something open in me that I didn't try to put back.
I pulled back. My forehead against his. His breath was warm on my mouth.
"I love you," I said. "I should have said it back."
He shook his head. "You didn't have to."
"Yeah. I did."
He kissed me again. His hand came up to the side of my neck, his thumb against my jaw, and I felt the whole of him against me, steady and warm and here.
Later, on the couch, Nova was across both of our laps, asleep, her fist curled against Duke's thigh and her feet warm against my stomach. Duke's arm behind my shoulders. My head on his chest. His thumb was moving back and forth along my shoulder, the small, absent motion of a man who was staying.
I didn't name it as forever. I couldn't, not yet. But I could name it as today. Today, I was the woman who had opened the door. Today, that was enough.
I closed my eyes and let myself stay.
CHAPTER 20
Duke
Audrey was asleep on the couch with her hand still on my chest when the alarm on my phone went off at five.
