“You’re okay with moving in together, then?” I ask, all of my hopes and dreams for the future tied to the simple question. “Another thing I probably should have asked first….”
Luke smiles that adorable half-smile, sending a shiver down my spine. “I’m beyond excited to move in with you.”
My heart soars with delight, but I arch a quizzical brow, my smile teasing. “And the fact that it’s literally your dream home has nothing to do with it?”
“Well. I mean.” Luke scoffs. “I’m notdead.”
It’s the wrong choice of words, even if it is meant as a joke, and I can’t contain the wince that takes over my face as it immediately brings up the uncomfortable images I haven’t been able to stop reliving since they happened. This time, Luke clearly catches the involuntary reaction, and he frowns.
“You’re not okay, are you?” he asks softly. I blink up at him in surprise. “This really fucked you up.”
There’s that depth of sadness again in his eyes—the weight of the world put back on his shoulders like he’s taking on the full responsibility for causing me pain. It fills me with a disastrous need to do whatever it takes to wash it away. But he drops his gaze and won’t look at me.
“I’ll be okay.” I shake my head. “I just need time to process it. This triggered a lot of my PTSD from my dad, is all. But I’m okay.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“You have nothing to apologize for.”
“I’ve done nothing but fuck up your life since I got here.”
“Luke,” I snap firmly, and he lifts his eyes back to my face. He stares at me in shock at the command in my tone. “You don’t get to decide how you’ve impacted my life. Okay? My life was fucked upbeforeyou got here. You made it astronomically better. I don’t care how much trauma I walk away with from this experience.The fact that you’re alive is worth it.”
“Ethan….”
“No, I’m serious,” I say quickly. My voice shakes against my control. I’m desperate for him to hear me—to believe me. “Even if someone told me before we met that I’d have the happiest days of my life with you, but I’d have to go through this pain again to get to keep you, I still would have chosen this path. I would choose you in every probability, every timeline, everyuniverse.”
Luke reaches for me, tears in his eyes. When I put my hand in his, he pulls me over until I sit on the edge of the bed next to him. He puts his hand on my cheek, his fingers curled through my beard, and the sensation travels through every nerve ending in my whole body, sending spirals of warmth outward from his touch. When he smiles, it feels like the break of spring after a harsh winter, thawing out the tension in my muscles.
“I love you,” he says—it’s the first time I’ve heard the words specifically in that order—the full proclamation—and it tears through me with the force of a rocket breaking the sound barrier. I can’t help but shudder as the words ripple through me, and I smile at how beautiful they sound from his lips. A garden blooms in my chest, the epitaph he’s marked my soul with for eternity.
He must be able to see how his words affect me—the power he has over my heart—because he smiles brightly, his whole face lighting up. He brushes his thumb over my jaw, and the touch eviscerates me and puts me back together like a never-ending cycle.
But then his expression falters slightly, a twinge of shadow over his sunny features.
“Still. I’mso sorrythat I put you through any of this,” he says solemnly. “I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you if I have to.”
I shake my head. “As long as you have a life to spend, I’ll be happy.”
Luke pulls on my arm gently and gestures for me to lie down with him. For a moment, I hesitate, shaking my head. The nurses have been very sweet to let me stick around well beyond visiting hours every day up to this point, but I don’t think they’d appreciate me lying in bed with him, no matter how much I might want to. There are rules about that kind of thing.
However, in typical Luke fashion, he tells me to do it anyway, and says he’ll fight anyone who thinks it’s a problem. His argument is very convincing.
I don’t know if he can tell how desperately I need it. Maybe he really needs it, too. Even though there’s hardly any room to speak of, I curl up next to him, lying my head on his chest, keeping well away from his injuries. He puts his right arm around my shoulders, holding me close, twisting his fingers in my hair. After everything, having him here, solidly beneath me, feels like the greatest prize in the universe.
“You know, you don’t have to pretend everything’s okay around me,” Luke whispers against my temple. The words twist around my heart, a tender caress over the lock and key chaining it down. It’s a delicate invitation peeling back the numbness I’ve felt since everything happened. “You don’t need to hold anything back. I’m not afraid to see you, Ethan. All of you.”
“I…” I start, and my throat suddenly goes tight, tears threatening to come to the surface. “I was so afraid I’d lost you forever. I didn’t know what I would do if you….” I can’t even finish the sentence. The words are too painful.
Luke understands. He brushes a kiss along my hairline, moving his fingers over my neck. “I’m still here.” It’s a promise. A vow. Acovenant. “I’m not going anywhere.”
His words succeed in unraveling more layers of the protective shell, exposing the soft, damaged parts of my soul I didn’t intend to shield but got covered up regardless. I can feel it crack around my ribcage, the sensation hurtling me into an unexpected wellof emotion lurking beneath the surface. It’s like Luke’s given me permission to feel it. It’s overwhelming.
“Fuck,” is all I manage to say before the floodgates open, and everything comes pouring out of me. Luke seems relieved, relaxing beneath me.
“There you go,” he purrs softly, hugging me tightly. Eventhatis enough to send me further over the edge. The amount of care behind those three little words tells me that he knew what I needed this whole time, even if I wasn’t ready to go there on my own.
I turn my face into his chest, unable to hold myself back now that the dam is broken. The weeks’ worth of stress and fear and agony I’ve been repressing come rushing out of me in a terrifying wave against my control, and I can’t stop the broken sob that racks through me.
