Chapter 8
eight
. . .
Rowan
She looks at me like I’ve just ripped her world apart, and maybe that’s exactly what I did a long time ago. The difference is, I’ve been too much of a coward to see it for what it was.
Now I can see it all too clearly.
The truth is, I never really understood what I was walking away from until this very moment.
I joined the military because I thought it would make me strong, that it would give me something solid to hold onto.
But it didn’t. All it did was make me realize just how weak I really was.
I thought running away would fix me. I thought it would be easier than facing her.
I didn’t know the price I’d pay for that decision.
I couldn’t face how she looked at me with those wide, trusting eyes, how she believed in me when I didn’t even believe in myself. She was everything I wasn’t. Good. Soft. Pure. And I loved her. God, how I loved her. But I wasn’t worthy of someone like her.
“I’m sorry,” I say, the words scraping my throat raw. “I’m so fucking sorry, Violet. I thought I was doing the right thing.”
Her eyes shine with unshed tears, but she doesn’t look away. “You should have told me,” she whispers. “I would have followed you anywhere.”
And just like that, something caves in my chest. All those years I kept telling myself this was the merciful choice. That letting her go was better than wrecking her…and for what?
Now she’s sitting here blinking back tears she doesn’t want me to see. Sweet and furious and so goddamn strong. I didn’t just tear my own heart out that day. I ripped hers in half and left her to hold the pieces on her own.
“I thought you might,” I rasp. “And that’s exactly why I left.”
She pulls back just enough for her brow to furrow, confusion shadowing her features like a bruise blooming slow and painful.
I can see her trying to make sense of it—of me—and I hate that I’m the reason she’s hurting like this.
I hate that I ever thought silence was mercy, that I ever thought I could leave without a word and spare her pain, when all I really did was abandon her.
Naive. Stupid. I can see exactly how every day I stayed gone made it easier for her to close herself off, how every missed call and unsent message stacked up between us.
“I would have never asked you to follow me into the kind of life I was headed for. I didn’t have shit figured out. I didn’t have anything to offer except a mess.”
Her bottom lip trembles, and that tiny, fragile crack just about breaks me in half. Because it’s not anger now. It’s worse. It’s hurt. It’s that bone-deep ache in knowing someone would’ve chosen you anyway, even if you had nothing to give.
I want to reach for her. To touch her cheek, tuck her hair behind her ear, do something to hold her together the way she used to hold me. But my hands stay where they are. Useless.
“And now?” she asks, voice small but firm.
Now? Now I’m not the same boy who ran without warning. I’ve learned what it means to keep yourself from unraveling even when everything inside wants to crumble. I have a life, a steady hand, a bank account that can actually pay the bills, and experiences that have tempered my impulsive heart.
I’m back because I think I can finally be the man I should have been all along.
I hold her gaze because it’s the only thing I can do right now. “I’d give anything to go back and do it differently, but I can’t. So all I can do is mean it when I say I’m sorry. And tell you I’ve always—”
“Please don’t,” she whispers. “You don’t know me anymore, Rowan.”
The words aren’t harsh, not meant to hurt, but that’s exactly what they do. It’s not the cruelty that cuts. It’s the truth.
I want to argue. I want to tell her she’s wrong, that I still know the parts of her that matter, the things that made me fall for her in the first place. Like the way she lit up a room with that sweet laugh and how she always saw the best in people. But…fuck, I can’t deny it.
She’s not that girl anymore, and I’m not the kid she used to look at like I was worth saving.
I left an eighteen-year-old behind with a cracked heart and unanswered questions, and now there’s a woman in front of me who wears the years like armor. She’s stronger.
Still beautiful. Still Violet. But not mine.
I sit here, just a few inches away from her, and all I can think about is how badly I want to reach for her hand. How badly I want to say every word I’ve kept locked inside all these years.
Instead, I nod. “Maybe not,” I say. “But I’d like to.”
Her eyes widen, and for a second, I think I see that girl I left behind. The one who used to believe in me. Then I see the woman she’s become. The woman who learned how to live without me.
“It’s not that simple,” she whispers, the words barely there but heavy as hell.
“I know I fucked up. But I’m here now, and I’m not going anywhere.”
A single tear slips down her cheek, and it might as well be a blade between my ribs. Sharp. Unforgiving. It steals the breath right out of my lungs.
I don’t move. I haven’t earned the right to reach for her.
Another tear follows, carving a slow, merciless path along her skin. Fuck. I can’t take it anymore. I move before I can stop myself from leaning in, my thumb brushing the wetness away with the lightest touch.
Her breath hitches, eyes glassy and tired and so full of the kind of heartbreak you don’t come back from clean.
“I can’t promise anything,” she states, voice paper-thin. “I spent years trying to forget you.”
I close my eyes for half a second. The truth of her words hits like a freight train. I know what she means.
“I know.” My voice is low. Hoarse. “I’m not asking you to pretend I didn’t hurt you. I’m not even asking you to forgive me. I just—” My hand drops to the table between us, palm up, open. “I’m just asking for you not to walk away before I get the chance to do it right this time.”
She stares at my hand like it’s a grenade. Like touching it might blow her whole life apart again. She doesn’t reach for me. Doesn’t run, either.
That sliver of stillness, that breath between heartbreak and hope, is the kindest thing she could’ve given me.
My hand just sits there, open and vulnerable between us. A little pathetic, maybe. What did I expect? That she’d reach across the table, slip her fingers into mine, and act like the last six years didn’t happen?
No. I didn’t come here for easy. Even if she can never look at me the same way again, I need her to know that I see her.
I don’t move. Don’t breathe. My heart beats so loud I can hardly hear anything else as I wait, the seconds stretching longer than they should. The silence is thick, taut, ready to snap any second.
Then slowly, cautiously, her hand shifts toward mine. Her fingers tremble, unsure, as if she’s testing whether touching me will scorch her. I stay still, frozen in place, terrified that if I move too fast, even breathe too hard, she’ll pull away.
Her fingers hover just above mine, not quite touching. Barely there. And yet, it seems as if the whole world tilts on that breath of space between us.
My throat works around a lump I can’t swallow. I don’t dare blink.
Then—contact.
The lightest brush. Her pinky against mine. It’s nothing. It’s everything.
A touch so soft it could’ve been an accident, but I know it’s not. Her skin is cold. Or maybe it’s mine. Doesn’t matter. The second she lets her fingers slide the rest of the way, heartbreakingly slow, I look up. Her eyes meet mine. Wide. Wet. Brave.
After everything. After the silence. The pain. The fucking mess I left behind.
She’s still here.
Her hand curls into mine, just enough to say maybe I’m not too late.
I can’t believe it. All those years of stealing glances, of wanting her, of loving her in silence, and I never let myself touch her like this. Definitely never tasted her lips like I so desperately wanted to.
No, I never even reached for her hand. Not when we sat side by side in the bed of my truck, not when she fell asleep on my shoulder that one night after too much sugar and too many secrets. I kept my distance. Always pulled away before the wanting could show.
But now her hand is in mine, and I might die if I stop touching her.
My fingers close around hers, my thumb drifting over the inside of her wrist where her pulse flutters soft and fast.
This is everything I ever let myself want and never thought I could have. A single, stolen piece of a life I used to dream about and buried deep just to survive.
I’ve never held anything more precious.
“Okay,” she whispers, and it’s more than I could have hoped for.
I can’t help the way my heart stutters. “Fresh start?”
She nods, just a little. “Fresh start.”
And just like that, I’m falling for her all over again—falling for the girl I knew, who lit up every room without even trying, and for the woman she’s become, rooted and fierce, who’s built a life that doesn’t include me.
Until now.