Chapter 18
The Way the Light Doesn’t Leave
Sometimes I dream. I dream of the past, of the present we built with our hands, and of the future we almost had.
And sometimes I dream of losing it all. There are nights when the dreams slip into nightmares, when they become too vivid, too sharp, and I wake up gasping, caught between memory and fear.
I feel like something has already been taken from me.
Like I’m already mourning a life that hasn’t yet ended.
On those nights, when I can’t breathe past the grief, I dive into memory.
I reach for it like a lifeline. I pick a moment—any moment—and fall into it, hoping it will hold me together.
I often find myself slipping back to our first kiss.
I think about how we fought it for so long, how we resisted what had already been written in the way we looked at each other.
And when it finally happened, when we let it happen, it was like something inside both of us shattered and reformed all at once.
I remember how terrified I was. I truly believed you would pull away, that you’d regret it, that you’d stand up and leave, and with you, my light would leave too.
My warmth. My sense of safety. My center.
You were already my soul by then, and I don’t think I fully understood it until that night.
I once overheard my mother say that anything hidden for too long will begin to die.
She said flowers need sunlight, and if you bring them home and forget to place them in the light, they’ll wither.
Love is the same. I couldn’t keep it inside anymore.
I couldn’t let my love for you curl up in the dark and die quietly.
So I told you. I didn’t know if you were ready to hear it, but I couldn’t live another day without speaking the truth out loud.
I had been gone, completely gone, for so long, carrying it all inside me. Every time I wanted to kiss you and didn’t. Every time I wanted to reach out and touch you but forced my hands to stay still. And I kept telling myself you didn’t know. That you had no idea what you meant to me.
But that night, when you got jealous of Itay, I remember how stunned I was, not by your jealousy itself, but by the fact that you truly believed there could be someone else.
I sat there watching you, trying to hold back my disbelief, and all I could think was: Is he serious?
Does he not know? It was laughable, not in a cruel way, but in the kind of way that breaks your heart a little.
Because the man I was already in love with thought I might want someone else.
You actually believed I could glance at another soul. That I could let another man touch me. That I had room in my heart for anyone else when the best man I had ever known was already giving me the time of day. And not just any man—you.
You, who I would have burned the world for.
You, who I woke up thinking about and fell asleep praying for.
You, who didn’t yet realize that I was already yours, hopelessly, entirely, without escape.
It was laughable. It was absurd.
Because if you had even an ounce of perspective, you’d know—I was gone for you. Ruined for anyone else. There was no one else. There never could be.
So I gathered everything I had—my pride, my fear, my trembling heart—and I gave you the truth.
I tried to say it carefully, gently, like I wasn’t setting fire to the air between us.
I tried to shape the words into something that wouldn’t frighten you away.
And then—before I could even finish—you crossed the room. You kissed me.
And just like that, everything changed.
No one had ever kissed me like that before. It wasn’t just a kiss; it was a claim. I finally knew how a kiss, how a real kiss, should feel. You owned me in that moment, and I let you. More than that, I wanted you to. I had never felt so relieved in my life, because finally—finally—you knew.