Chapter 37
DARE
I’m not good at noticing change—just the after. But this time, I can feel the shift in the air between us. A countdown I didn’t know had started.
I found him on the floor with his laptop, legs crossed, earbuds in, a half-empty smoothie sweating beside him. His eyes lifted when I came in, and in a single, practiced motion, Tru closed the screen, like he hadn’t just been reading something that mattered.
“Hey,” he said lightly.
My gut twisted. “Hey. What were you doing?”
“Nothing. Just checking emails.”
It was the smallest pause, but I’d learned to hear the spaces in Tru’s words, the quiet between his breaths that gave him away. I nodded slowly and tossed my keys onto the desk, the sound too loud in the room.
“You got it, didn’t you.”
It came out rough, more accusation than question.
Tru hesitated, bracing for a hit that hadn’t come yet. Then he nodded. “I did. I—I got the internship.” He said it softly, like an apology.
I stared at him. He didn’t ask how I knew, didn’t accuse me of snooping—which, yeah, I had. I’d do it again, because Truen belonged to me, and after years of being without him, I couldn’t stomach the not knowing. I needed his truths. Every one of them.
I sat down hard on the edge of the bed, air thinning in my lungs. “When were you gonna tell me?”
“I just found out a few hours ago.”
“But the interview was days ago.”
He swallowed, eyes flicking down. “I needed to know for sure.”
My vision blurred, the room closing in around the sound of my pulse. He crossed the space between us, his hands settling on my knees like he could hold me steady through sheer will.
“It’s just for the summer,” he said.
I looked at him—really looked—and it fucking hurt how much I loved him. “Then I’ll go with you.”
“Dare—”
“I will. I’ll get a job, find a sublet—”
“Babe.”
“I mean it,” I said, voice cracking. I didn’t have a plan, barely had savings, but I couldn’t stand the thought of being left behind.
He took a slow breath, eyes flicking up to mine. “I think you should take the offer from Coach Harmon. The summer program at the rec center. You were excited about that.”
“It’s not New York.” My throat felt raw. It’s not you.
I’d just gotten him back. I couldn’t lose him. Not when everything in me still felt like it was catching up to the moment I stopped pretending I didn’t orbit him, that I realized he was the gravity I’d spent my life fighting against.
“No,” he said quietly. “It’s your start, and New York is mine.”
His words slid under my skin, quiet and fatal.
Everything in me that wanted to make this not goodbye surged forward. “You’re asking me to stay.” My voice broke on the last word.
“I’m asking you to trust this won’t end just because we’re apart.”
The cuff on his wrist caught the light—the one I gave him, my words etched inside: I dare you to live your truth.
I wanted to tell him my truth is you. But maybe it was both. Him, and the version of me that finally knew how to fight for what mattered.
Still, my voice came out rough. “It feels like you’re leaving me.”
He reached up and cupped my face, forehead resting against mine. His breath trembled when he said, “I’m not. I’m just going for a while. I’ll be back before you can even miss me.”
Not fucking likely.
I closed my eyes. My chest throbbed with the pain of losing him. And even though every part of me wanted to hold on tighter, I let go—just enough for him to breathe, but not enough to let him disappear.
The week before finals stretched in two directions. Forward into pressure and possibility, and backward into something I couldn’t hold onto.
Tru had been different lately. Not cold, not distant—just off.
He texted more than usual. Sent pictures of his coffee, his latest sketches, screenshots of dumb memes we used to scroll past together. He kissed me as if trying to prove a point. Told me he loved me at random times—once in the middle of the store while we were comparing laundry detergent.
“I love you more than Tide Pods,” he’d said with that crooked grin, then ducked behind a display when I stared too long.
At first, I liked the attention, the constant hum of him in my pocket and my head. But now it felt like padding. Insulation around something sharp. Maybe he was scared, too.
Maybe that’s why I kept checking my phone even when he was sitting right beside me. Why I’d started memorizing the weight of his head on my shoulder, the lazy patterns he traced on my thigh, the exact rasp of his laugh when he was sleep-deprived and running on energy drinks.
We were curled up on his bed—or mine; it didn’t matter anymore. We’d stopped calling them separate weeks ago. The desk lamp glowed low, books scattered everywhere, the sharp scent of highlighter ink hanging in the air. But studying was the last thing on my mind.
“You’re really going,” I said finally, breaking the silence.
He didn’t pretend not to know what I meant.
“Did I explain what I’ll be working on?” he asked, trying to distract me.
Only a million times. I forced a smile. “Tell me again.”
“So, they’re creating a webtoon of their most popular game, Fight Night. I’ll be helping design slides for it. Well, me and five other interns. It’s a beta program, but if it takes off, there could be a permanent position.”
His voice lifted with excitement, and my stomach twisted with acid and ache in equal parts. I dropped a kiss on his hair and whispered, “That sounds perfect for you, babe. You’re gonna kill it.”
The words were meant to sound proud, but they tasted sour.
We didn’t talk about New York. Not that night.
The silence was palpable, filled with unsaid things. Tru lay tucked under my arm, one leg tangled with mine. His breath moved slowly against my neck, but I knew he wasn’t sleeping.
“You’re really going,” I murmured.
He nodded once. He’d been waiting for me to say it out loud.
“I’m proud of you,” I added, the words scraping out of me like gravel.
He tilted his face up, all soft eyes and shadows. “Then be proud with me. Not against me.”
That stung. Because I knew I’d been holding him too tight, pretending I could protect us from change if I just didn’t let go.
“I’ll miss this,” I said. “You. Us.”
“You won’t lose me,” he whispered. His hand slipped under my shirt, fingertips mapping me like he was afraid he’d forget the terrain.
I turned toward him, kissing him slowly, desperately, memorizing. The kind of kiss you give when time is slipping through your fingers. I pressed him closer, trying to brand the moment into both of us.
“Remember this,” I whispered against his mouth. “Remember what we are.”
“I will,” he breathed. “Always.”
It wasn’t enough. None of it was. My hands tightened in his hair, my forehead resting against his.
Every beat between us felt like the edge of goodbye.
I wanted to mark him somehow, leave proof that we existed, that this was real.
But all I could do was hold on, harder, until I felt his heartbeat thrum against mine.
With rough hands, I stripped away his sleep pants and briefs, clutching, squeezing, fingers digging into his skin desperately.
My lips traced the contours of his body, the curve of his hip, his flat stomach, the inside of his thighs.
I sucked dark welts into his skin, marking him.
Claiming him. Wishing it was enough to make him stay.
When he started to beg, I shoved into him roughly, only a thin coating of my saliva to ease the way.
Tru cried out, digging his fingers into my arms as he hung on.
I knew it burned, knew he was biting his lip to keep from screaming, but I needed it to hurt a little.
I needed to see him suffer for me, to show me his sacrifice and commitment.
It wouldn’t stop my heart from breaking, but it might tame the beast inside enough to let him leave.
Maybe.
My pace was quick and sloppy as I pounded into him, skin slapping against skin, breath mingling with his as we struggled to breathe. “Gonna fuck you so hard—” I panted, face red, “you’ll still feel it when your plane lands.”
“Dare,” he moaned, locking his legs around my waist.
Usually, we tried to be quiet, mostly, so we didn’t give ourselves away to our neighbors. The walls were paper-thin. But tonight, fuck it. Fuck them. Let them hear us. Let the whole goddamn world hear us.
I wanted everyone to know Truen Jameson was mine, and I was never letting him go.
“Get up on your knees.” I helped him up and positioned him, my hand on his hip. Without finesse, I plunged back inside his tight ass and railed the fuck out of him. Tru didn't even try to hold back his screams. Every brutal thrust was a punishment. A reminder. And a plea… please stay.
Tru braced one hand against the wall to stop his head from plowing through it, the other on his dick, jacking it furiously.
He cried out my name, shooting his load over the pillows.
His chest collapsed into the wet mess, but I held his hips firm, his ass stuck in the air, just where I wanted it.
I fucked him relentlessly, chasing my orgasm. Chasing him.
Fucking. Stay. With. Me. It was as though I was imprinting each word onto him with every thrust, tattooing them into his skin. When I spilled my load inside him, hot tears blinded my vision.
He hadn’t left, but the room already felt empty.
He’d left his toothbrush, his hoodie, and a half-used notebook on my desk—the corner of one page folded, like maybe he would come back. His bed was still unmade, sheets twisted like he’d just stepped out to grab coffee and would be back any minute. But I knew better.
I kept hearing his voice in my head. It’s just the summer, Dare.
But I’d lived whole lifetimes in less time than this.
The bed felt too big now. Or maybe I was just smaller without him.
I tried staying busy, doing laundry, cleaning up, even alphabetizing my playlists, but no matter what I did, the space he left behind swallowed me whole. Even the quiet had edges shaped like him.
I sat on my own bed, elbows braced on my knees, clutching the text he left me:
Landed safe. Already miss you. Dare to live it, okay? I love you.
I didn’t reply. Not yet. Because everything felt broken, like I was standing at the edge of something that used to be whole, staring at the first real distance between us and not knowing how far it would stretch.
The room still smelled of his cologne, the warm, familiar scent ghosting through the air. I closed my eyes and lay back, thumb absently tracing over the dark screen, trying to believe him when he said it was only for the summer.
I never wanted to need anyone. Until him. And now he was gone, and I didn’t know what to do with all this want, all this ache.
I thought about all the years we’d spent apart, angry, missing each other, hating each other, hating myself. So many wasted fucking years.
Some people leave without meaning to. Others mean to, but promise they’ll return. But the worst kind are the ones you love enough to let go of anyway.
And I did.
I let him go.
Because I loved him enough to want him happy.
And maybe, somewhere under all this ache, that’s what love is supposed to be, wanting someone’s peace more than your own.
Still, when the night goes quiet and my phone stays dark, I can’t help wishing he’d walk back through the door and say he changed his mind.