Raven
The room is quiet in a way that feels different tonight. Like the night itself has settled over everything, soft and deliberate.
The tree glows in the corner of the room exactly the way Sam wanted it. It’s tucked close enough to the bed that I can see it without turning my head. The lights create a steady warmth. I watch them for a long moment.
There’s something about tonight. Something that feels sacred. Like the world has narrowed itself down to this moment. The thin veil between what is and what comes next.
Christmas Eve.
The night everything waits for.
The night something is given.
Something that changes everything after it arrives.
My breath moves shallow in my chest, each one softer than the last. They’re not painful or strained, just lighter, like my body is already beginning to loosen its hold on something it doesn’t need anymore.
Sam’s beside me. The warmth of him pressed close. He’s the steady presence that’s been there through everything. The one thing that has never wavered, never stepped back, never let me fall without catching me first.
The sound of his voice drifts through the quiet, low and steady as he reads, the words blending together into something softer than meaning, something that wraps around me instead of asking me to follow it.
I drift in and out of it.
In and out of him.
In and out of the moment.
There are seconds when I catch a word, a sentence, something familiar enough that I almost hold onto it. Almost follow where it’s going, but it slips before I can, dissolving back into the sound of him instead of the story.
I don’t need the story. I only need him.
My fingers shift beneath his, the movement small, unintentional at first, but he feels it immediately, his voice faltering, the rhythm of it breaking as he leans closer. His hand tightens around mine like he’s been waiting for that one sign, that one moment when I come back to him.
“I’m here,” he murmurs, softer now. “I’ve got you.”
I turn my head slowly, the effort heavier than it should be, my eyes finding his through the dim glow of the tree. The light catches his features, softening the edges of him in a way that feels unreal, like I’m looking at something I need to remember but don’t have the strength to hold onto.
He looks different tonight.
Not because anything about him has changed.
But because I see it now. The way he’s holding himself together. The way he’s watching me.
The knowing.
It’s there.
Quiet.
Unspoken.
But it’s there.
My chest tightens, not with fear, not anymore. It’s an understanding, a knowing that settles deep inside. I don’t want to waste a second of what’s left.
“Sam,” I whisper, my voice soft, thinner than I expect.
“I’m here, sweetheart,” he says, leaning closer. “I’m right here.”
“I think…” My breath catches. “I think it’s time.”
He shakes his head before I even finish.
“You’re just tired,” he says, his voice uneven around the edges. “That’s all this is. You just need to rest.”
I watch him as he says it.
The way he needs it to be true.
“Sam,” I say quieter now.
“No,” he says, the word coming too fast. “No, it’s not. Don’t—don’t say that.”
His hand tightens around mine like he’s trying to hold me here. Like if he just keeps enough of me anchored, I won’t slip any further away.
My fingers curl slightly against his wrist, enough to stop him, enough to pull him back to me instead of whatever he’s trying to hold onto. He stills, and I hold his gaze, not looking away. Not letting him hide from it or from me.
“Wolf, please,” I whisper. “Don’t make me stay here.”
There’s a pause.
For a second, I think he’s going to fight me the way he always does when it comes to losing me. But he doesn’t. He knows this time I’m asking him to keep his word.
His arm slides beneath me, careful, like he’s afraid of hurting me even now, and he shifts me closer, lifting me just enough to bring me fully against him, my weight settling into his chest as his arm wraps tighter around my back.
His other hand comes up slowly, his fingers slipping carefully through my hair, smoothing it back from my face like he’s not thinking about it. Like he just needs to touch me. Like he’s anchoring himself before he can do anything else.
He pulls back just enough to look at me, his hand coming up to my face, his thumb brushing slow and unsteady across my cheek.
“Are you sure?” he asks, his voice rough, barely holding together.
I don’t hesitate.
I don’t need to.
I nod.
His gaze lingers on mine for a second longer. He’s trying to take all of me with him, every detail, every part he won’t be able to reach the same way again.
Then he leans closer.
I breathe him in. Not just the air between us, but him. The way he smells—citrus and sandalwood.
His lips press softly to mine. I hold onto the warmth of his mouth against mine. The shape of him so close. The way his hand is still at my back, steady and unyielding.
I let it settle into me, deeper than breath, deeper than thought, hoping that if I take enough of it in, it’ll stay. It’ll linger somewhere I can reach even when everything else is gone.
Praying I can take this part of him with me.
There’s a breath, a quiet one and then—
“Okay,” he says.
That one word costs him everything.
When he pulls back, he doesn’t go far just enough that he can reach for the blanket at the edge of the bed, drawing it up and around me with careful, deliberate movements.
Then his arm comes back around me, as he gathers me closer into him. I settle against his chest, the movement pulling a soft breath from me as I find the familiar place beneath his chin, the place I’ve always fit without thinking.
His heart is beating beneath me.
Strong.
Unwavering.
I focus on that, on the steady rhythm of it, even as I feel mine faltering.
Outside, snow is falling, slow and steady, each flake drifting through the quiet as if it belongs to something older than the moment we’re in. Something that’s always existed and will continue long after this night has passed.
The moon hangs low above us, pale and luminous against the dark, its light spilling over everything in a way that feels almost unreal. For a moment, it feels like we’ve stepped into something untouched.
The air is so still I can almost hear it. The soft hush of snow meeting the ground. The faint whisper of it brushing against the trees. The quiet rhythm of it settling into the night like a breath that never quite finishes.
Everything slows.
Everything softens.
The world has drawn itself in close, holding this space open for us, letting everything else fall away until there’s nothing left but this fragile, sacred stillness that’s been waiting for us to arrive.
The sound reaches me before the sight of it does. The quiet, steady movement of water threading through the stillness of the night, constant and unbroken.
He slows as we reach it, as if his feet refuse to take the last few steps, because getting here means something neither of us can take back.
And still he brings me the rest of the way.
He lowers himself carefully at the edge of the creek, settling onto the ground. He keeps me in his arms, drawing me closer as he shifts, settling me across his lap, one arm wrapped tight around my back, the other braced just enough to keep me steady against him.
The cold should reach us here. I can see it in the frost along the edges of the water, in the snow gathering at the bank, in the way his breath leaves him in soft, visible clouds that disappear almost as quickly as they form. But he doesn’t react to it.
“I remember the first time I saw you,” I say finally, my voice quiet but steady, the words coming easier than anything else has tonight.
I smile as the memory rises slowly and clearly.
“I’d just gotten home from school,” I say. “I remember dropping my bag by the door and hearing voices in the kitchen. I didn’t think anything of it at first.”
My breath drifts, but I follow it.
“I walked in, and you were standing there like you belonged,” I whisper. “Like you’d always been there. As if it were the most natural thing in the world for you to be in my kitchen.”
I let out the smallest breath of a laugh, softer than before, and it takes me a second to find the next breath.
“You didn’t even notice me,” I add. “You were talking with Knox, leaning against the counter like you’d done it a hundred times, and I just stopped.”
“I noticed you. Not right away,” he admits. “But I did.”
“I remember thinking I should say something,” I go on, my voice quieter now, the memory pulling tighter around me. “That I should walk in and act normal, like it didn’t matter.”
My fingers tighten slightly against him as I struggle to take my next breath.
“Easy,” Sam whispers as his hand makes small circles on my back. “Take your time.”
My next breath takes too long to come. There’s so much I still need to say. “But I couldn’t,” I finally get out.
I pause, just for a second, feeling it all over again.
“I just stood there and looked at you,” I whisper. “And something in me knew”
His hold on me tightens, and my head settles more fully against him.
The snow falls around us.
“I think I fell in love with you right there,” I say, the words barely more than a breath now. “Before you ever even knew I was there.”
He exhales against me, uneven, his face lowering into my hair like he’s trying to hold onto the moment the same way I am.
“I didn’t,” he says after a second. “Not right away.”
I smile faintly against him because I already know that.
“I fought it,” he continues. “You were too young. You were my best friend’s little sister.” His breath catches, and I feel it where I’m pressed against him. “And I kept telling myself that was enough reason to stay away.”
My chest tightens, and I have to pause, my breath catching before I can pull in the next one, the space between them stretching longer than I want it to.
His arm tightens immediately, his hand moving slowly along my back.
“Raven.” His voice sounds wrecked now, stripped raw with terror. “Don’t go. Please keep breathing.”
I draw in a breath, smaller than before, but enough to keep going.
“I told myself I was doing the right thing,” he says, his voice breaking at the edges now. “That I was protecting you. Protecting him. Protecting everything.”
His grip tightens.
“But I wasn’t. I was just afraid of how much you mattered the second I realized it,” he admits, his voice unsteady now, losing the control he’s been holding onto all night.
“I was afraid. That’s what it was. I was afraid of how much you mattered once I finally admitted it, and every time I walked away from you, every time I made you think I didn’t feel it too, I regret all of it. ”
“You loved me,” I whisper, the words soft, uneven now, stretched between breaths. “In the only way you knew how.”
It takes me a second to find the next breath.
“And then you loved me the way I needed,” I add quietly.
My chest rises again, slower this time.
“I wouldn’t change anything.”
“I should’ve chosen you sooner,” he says, the words breaking apart as they leave him.
“You chose me,” I whisper, the words stretching gently between breaths. “Every time it mattered, you chose me.”
“It wasn’t enough.”
“Yes,” I breathe out. “Always enough.”
My hand presses weakly against his chest, feeling the steady rhythm beneath my palm.
"And I'm still choosing you," I whisper. The certainty in my voice never falters. "Nothing changes that."
His eyes squeeze shut.
"Raven..." My name breaks apart on his breath.
A tear slips free, warm against my cheek as he rests his forehead against mine.
"Please," he whispers. “Don’t talk like that. Stay with me. Please. Just stay.”
I take a breath. It doesn’t come as easily. But I find it.
“I am,” I whisper. “You just won’t always see me the same way.”
“I need you here,” he says, his voice raw now, stripped of everything but the truth of it. “I need you with me.”
I smile even as everything begins to soften at the edges.
“You’ll still have me,” I whisper. “In the quiet. In the places we’ve been. In the moments you don’t expect.”
“I’m not going anywhere you can’t find me,” I breathe the words like they’re already drifting somewhere just beyond me. “You just have to look a little differently.”
He presses his face into my hair, his breath breaking in uneven pulls as he holds me closer, like he’s trying to keep me here through sheer force.
“No,” he begs. “Please don’t do this. Don’t leave me. I don’t know who I am without you.”
I take one more breath.
It’s shallow.
But enough.
“I love you,” I whisper. “Forever.”
The word settles against him, and I feel the way his arms tighten, the way his breath breaks where he’s pressed close to me.
“I love you,” he says, tears slipping into my hair and along my temple. Something I register more than I understand. “I love you, Raven. I love you so damn much.”
My chest lifts.
It doesn’t go as far this time.
I try again.
The air catches somewhere deep, and I stay there for a second. My body is waiting for something that doesn’t quite arrive the way it should.
His voice is still there saying my name, but it’s farther now, like I’m hearing it from just beneath the surface of something I can’t quite push through.
My fingers rest over his heart, and I feel it, strong and steady beneath my palm, a rhythm that doesn’t match mine anymore.
I hold onto that.
To him.
To this.
The water moves beside us, the sound of it constant, low, threading through everything. I feel my hand at the edge of it, my fingers barely touching the surface. The cold of it is dulled, distant, like it belongs to something outside of me now.
My body shifts against him without meaning to, not away, just loosening like something untying from the inside.
Another breath.
It catches.
Pauses.
My chest barely rises this time.
There’s a moment where I feel the difference, not fear, just the absence of what used to come easily. The space where it should be but isn’t.
His arms pull me closer, like he feels it too.
I don’t want to leave him. The thought is clear, stronger than anything else.
So I stay in his arms. In the place I’ve always fit.
As long as I can.
Until something shifts. Not around me. Inside me. The effort of holding on simply stops. My body doesn’t fight for the next breath. Doesn’t reach for it.
It simply lets it go.
And in that space I’m still here.
Still aware.
But lighter.
Untethered in a way that doesn’t hurt.
Sam’s voice is still there, broken now, closer and farther all at once. And I feel him, not just where he’s holding me, but everywhere.
The rise and fall of his chest beneath my cheek.
The steady rhythm I can’t follow anymore.
But he does.
He keeps breathing.
The water keeps moving.
The snow keeps falling.
The world doesn’t stop.
It continues.
And I let go.