I stop, warmth spreading along my cheek as the tear falls.
The kitchen is very quiet except for the oven ticking and the tap dripping and my own breathing, which is not entirely steady.
"I don't know what's happening, Ian." I don’t look at him. "I don't know if he's coming back. I don't know if he's alive. And it's killing me. It's absolutely killing me, and then—" The words start coming faster, unspooling, weeks of managed fear finally finding the gap. "Then what happened on the step last night, and now today and the tension and I don't know if I wanted it to happen or not, or if you wanted it to happen or not, and I'm standing here making muffins that taste wrong because I need something to feel like him and nothing does, nothing does, and I'm a complete mess trying to?—"
His mouth crashes down on mine, swallowing the rest of my broken words. The tray slips, and metal hits tile.
Time splits in half as his hand slides to the back of my neck, pulling me into him.
I gasp into his mouth, a broken, shocked sound, but I don’t push him away.
I should. I know I should.
But I don’t. Because for one moment, the hollow isn’t empty. For one second, the loneliness, the longing stops being this pulsating thing, and I can’t stop myself from leaning intothe relief, into the peace of not hurting every single second of every single day.
His tongue finds mine, the contact sharp and so immediate he groans against my lips, grabs my waist, spins me and pushes my back against the counter.
There’s only heat and touch and the frantic proof that I’m still here, still alive, still capable of feeling something other than endless waiting and bone-crushing fear.
He’s kissing me in a way you stop someone from drowning, not by pulling them out but by giving them something solid to hold on to. And for one unguarded second, I hold on. One second where my hands stop shaking, the noise stops, and there’s just this. Just warmth and stillness and the smell of cinnamon and Ian this close.
The timer on the oven goes off, and reality slices in, shrill and absolute, splitting the moment apart, and just like that, the world comes back.
I tear my mouth away with a gasp, breathing hard, tears spilling fresh down my cheeks. Ian rests his forehead against mine, eyes closed, chest heaving. His hands are still on me—one tangled in my hair, the other gripping my hip like he physically cannot let go yet.
“Fuck,” he rasps. “Sophia… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to?—”
“Don’t.” My voice breaks. “Don’t apologize. I kissed you back.”
My hands are flat against his chest. Not pushing. Just there. Creating the distance that needs to exist.
We stay like this, the silence a living thing, stretching between us until the heat dies and the relief’s gone, replaced by something complicated.
"Ian—”
"I know." His voice is rough. "I know, Crazy."
Neither of us moves for a moment. We just breathe. Just exist. Letting it all settle around us. Then he drops his hands. Steps back. Looks at the muffin batter splattered across the kitchen floor.
“You should try to get some sleep. I’ll clean up.”
“Ian, you don’t?—”
“Please, Sophia.” His gaze cuts to mine, and I see the current underneath, the desperation clawing through the hunger. “Go to bed.”
I nod. The air’s too volatile, my head too much of a mess to even try to talk this through. But as I walk away, Ian’s kiss still lingering on my lips, I see it clearly. Clearer than I have in weeks. I see Reth. His face, his soul, his heart. And I’m reminded that I love him enough to wait a lifetime.
6
RETH
She’s above me.
Relief crashes through me so violently it almost hurts—a raw, bone-deep wave ofthank fuck, you’re herethat steals the air from my lungs. I’ve missed her like a man misses oxygen after drowning.
For weeks, I’ve been starving for this, forher—the only thing that still feels real in the dark. The only light I have left. Seeing her now, even in this fevered dream, feels like coming home after years of war.
My chest cracks open with it, gratitude and desperate longing twisting together until I can barely breathe.
