Page 136 of Secret Paths

I stay still.

If I move, I might reach for her too soon.

“I built a life I like after Karim,” she says. “Not a perfect one. Not a lonely tragic one either. Mine. My house. My work. My routines. My peace.” She swallows. “And I convinced myself that if I let a relationship into that, eventually I would find out we only worked in the exciting bits.”

I do not interrupt.

She looks across the green, not at me now. “That was what frightened me. Not you exactly. The after. The ordinary. What happens when the secrecy stops and the thrill has to survive breakfast, tired evenings, errands, village gossip and all the small things nobody puts in love stories because they are not shiny enough.”

I think of her in my jumper, furious at Homes Under the Hammer.

I think of her on my doorstep in the rain.

I think of her letting me buy sanitary towels and then laughing herself breathless over the lie I told to protect her.

“You and I already have the ordinary,” she says, turning back to me. “That is what I realised. You know me when I am tired. When I am sharp. When I am scared and pretending I am not. When I need something and hate needing it.” Her mouth tightens, then steadies. “You know the version of me I usually try to keep out of sight.”

“I like that version.”

“I know.”

Those two words give me hope.

Because she believes them.

Maybe not entirely. Not yet. But enough to say it.

“I still need my own home,” she says. “My own time. My own routines. I need to be able to be by myself without it meaning something is wrong.”

“Yes.”

“I am serious.”

“I know.”

“I cannot have you thinking this means I am suddenly ready to have you in every corner of my life.”

“I do not want corners,” I say.

That startles her.

I step a little closer, slowly enough that she can move back if she wants to. She does not.

“I do not want less of you so I can fit somewhere neat,” I say. “I want more of you. There is a difference.”

Her eyes shine.

Only a little.

Enough.

“I do not know how to do this,” she says.

“Good. Neither do I.”

“That is not comforting.”

“It is honest.”