Chapter 25 Adrian #2
The anguish in his voice makes my heart ache.
For the first time, I’m seeing the full scope of what Victor’s manipulation cost both of us.
It’s not just the missed opportunities or the years of separation, but the fundamental damage to Vince’s ability to trust his own feelings, and to believe he deserved happiness.
“We can’t change what happened,” I say, gently squeezing his hand before I lose my nerve and pull away. “But we can decide what happens next.”
Vince looks at me with something like hope flickering in his eyes. “What do you want to happen next?”
The question hangs between us, loaded with years of longing and hurt and possibility. I think about the sketch I created of him last night, how right it felt to capture him on paper again. I think about the way he looked at me on the beach today, like I was worth risking everything for.
“I don’t actually know,” I say finally, the honesty cutting through my defenses. “I don’t know how to want things anymore without wondering when they’ll be taken away.”
He goes quiet, and I know he’s trying to understand the depth of what I’ve just said. It’s the truest thing I’ve said in years, the core fear that’s shaped every decision I’ve made.
“You stayed in my head, Adrian,” he says finally, his voice rough and pained. “In the quiet parts, in the pauses between everything I did. It’s not because I was stuck, but because I never stopped carrying you.”
The words hit me hard, beautiful and devastating in equal measure. I have to close my eyes against the intensity of what they mean and offer.
“That’s the problem,” I whisper. “You carried me, and I carried you, and neither of us learned how to put the other down. Do you have any idea what that does to a person? Living with that kind of weight?”
“Tell me.”
I open my eyes and find him watching me with an expression so vulnerable it makes my ribs ache.
“It makes you afraid of everything, to get close to anyone because they’re not you.
Terrified to create anything real because it feels like betrayal.
Hesitant to hope for anything because hope is what breaks you. ”
Vince shifts closer, and I can feel the warmth radiating from his body, the familiar pull that’s always existed between us.
“I know what it’s like to live half a life,” he says quietly.
“To go through the motions of being someone else while the person you actually are just watches from the sidelines.”
“Then you know why I can’t just say yes to this, why I can’t pretend it’s simple.”
“I’m not asking you to pretend anything.” His voice carries a conviction that makes me want to believe him. “I’m asking you to consider the possibility that some things are worth the risk of being broken again.”
“And what if we’re not strong enough?”
The question comes from the deepest, most terrified part of me, the part that’s convinced I’m fundamentally altered by what we went through. But instead of reassurance or platitudes, Vince gives me something more valuable, and that is honesty.
“Then we figure it out together,” he says, his voice steadier now. “Damage doesn’t disqualify us from love, Adrian. Sometimes it just means we love more carefully.”
Love. He mentions the word without even realizing it, and the easy way it falls from his lips makes my breath catch.
It takes a while before I can form a coherent thought after that.
I want to argue with him, to point out all the ways this could go wrong, all the reasons we’re not the same people we were at eighteen.
But sitting here beside him, feeling the solid reality of his presence, I can’t deny that something in me responds to his certainty like a flower turning toward sunlight.
“I have been sketching and painting you, not always from memory, but often from yearning,” I say, my voice low, carrying the history and longing of every piece I made of him.
“Fragments of what I remembered, pieces of what I imagined you’d become.
I’d start these portraits and never finish them because they never looked right. They never felt whole.”
“How so?”
“They looked lonely,” I say without hesitation. “Impossibly so, even when I tried to paint you smiling. It was like you were searching for something you couldn’t find.”
Vince’s entire body locks up. “Maybe I was.”
The simple acknowledgment breaks something open in my chest, and I have to look away before the emotion overwhelms me completely. I realize that we’ve both been searching for something. We’ve been carrying these ghost versions of each other, these incomplete portraits of what we lost.
“You make it sound possible,” I say.
“Maybe it is.”
The maybes hang between us like a bridge neither of us is quite ready to cross. But it’s there now, real and tangible, offering passage to something we’ve both been afraid to reach for.
He puts his hand on top of mine on the bench, not intertwining our fingers but simply resting his palm against the back of my hand.
The touch is warm and grounding without being possessive.
I stare down at our hands, his larger and more weathered than mine, marked by years of athletic training and discipline.
But they’re gentle against my skin, patient in a way that makes my throat tight with so much emotion.
“Your career,” I point out, because I can’t help myself. “Your reputation, your endorsements. Everything you’ve built.”
“Was built on a foundation of pretending to be someone I’m not.” His voice carries no regret, only clarity. “Maybe it’s time to find out what I can build on truth instead.”
“And if it costs you everything?”
He’s quiet for a long moment, considering the question with the seriousness it deserves. When he answers, his voice is steady and sure.
“Then at least I’ll know what everything was actually worth,” he says, giving me a small smile.
We sit in comfortable silence as the sun continues its descent toward the horizon, painting the sky in brilliant shades of orange and pink. The beauty of the moment feels like a promise, like the universe offering us a second chance at something we thought was lost forever.
“We should probably get back,” I say eventually, though I’m reluctant to break the spell of this conversation.
“Probably.” But neither of us moves to leave.
“The rehearsal dinner starts in an hour.”
“We’ll make it.”
I turn to study his profile, memorizing the way the golden light catches the strong line of his jaw, the way his hair moves in the ocean breeze.
“For the record,” I say, gathering courage I didn’t know I still possessed, “I never stopped caring about you. Not completely.”
The smile that spreads across his face is radiant, transforming his entire expression into something that makes my heart skip with possibility.
“Good,” he says, bringing our joined hands to his lips and pressing a soft kiss to my knuckles. “Don’t stop now.”
The simple gesture sends heat spiraling through me. Sitting here beside him, feeling his warmth and seeing the affection in his eyes, I can almost believe we might finally get it right.