Chapter Ten #2
Outside, Griff’s already heading up the walk, Knox a step behind him. Griff’s jaw is set. Knox’s hands are shoved in his pockets, eyes searching the front of the house like he’s trying to see inside it.
Inside us.
Shit. This is it.
The line between what used to be ours and what isn’t anymore.
The knock hits the door, hard enough to rattle the frame.
I suck in a breath that doesn’t quite make it all the way down, square my shoulders, and turn around.
And when he sees me standing in the doorway?
His entire expression softens. Just for me.
“Hey, Sierra.” Low. Warm. Knox’s voice takes up space without trying.
I swallow harder than I should, because there’s a part of me that wants to lean into that voice, that steadiness, that safety, and another part that wants to scream at myself for the timing.
Jace shifts behind me, and I feel it, that quiet tension rolling off him in waves. He sees who just arrived. He knows exactly what this means.
Griff looks around the house and doesn’t even pretend to hide his scowl. “You couldn’t have waited?” he snaps, climbing the steps two at a time.
“I was trying to,” I say softly. “You just… beat the clock.”
Griff looks past me, eyes landing on Jace like a laser sight. “So you are home.”
Jace straightens, jaw flexing. “I… didn’t know any of this was happening.”
“Yeah,” Griff says, stepping in close. “Funny how a man never sees the damage until it’s sitting in boxes.”
“Griff,” I warn under my breath.
But Griff doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t even blink.
Jace doesn’t rise to it. His voice stays low, careful, almost too calm. “I don’t want to fight with you.”
“Good,” Griff fires back. “Because you wouldn’t win.”
The air cracks then, not loud, or visible, just a sharp, invisible pressure between all of us. The kind that makes my chest tighten.
Knox adjusts his stance on the porch, his boot scuffing lightly against the wood as he shifts closer. He doesn’t speak, just rests a hand on the corner of a box near the door, steady, grounding. Not crowding, he’s just… there. Like he’s anchoring the space without saying a word.
“Let’s get the heavy ones first,” I say quickly, trying to redirect before Griff combusts. “The ones in the hallway—”
But Griff cuts me off, voice cracking around the edges. “No. Not yet. I want to hear him say it.”
My stomach drops.
“Say what?” Jace asks quietly.
“That you didn’t choose her,” Griff snarls. “Not once. Not really.”
My breath goes thin. “Griff—”
He lifts a hand, not at me, just enough to stop me from interrupting. He’s not trying to control me. He’s trying to control the part of him that shakes when he’s scared for me.
“You broke her,” Griff says, eyes locked on Jace. “And I had to watch her pretend she wasn’t bleeding for months.”
“Griff, stop.” My voice cracks, humiliatingly soft.
He shakes his head, voice lowering. “Sierra, you don’t have to defend him. Not anymore.”
Jace flinches like the words physically hit him.
Knox steps in then, angling his body just slightly between me and the two of them. Shielding me enough that I can breathe again.
“Griff,” Knox says gently, “this isn’t helping her.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Griff snaps back, “was I supposed to help him instead?”
Knox doesn’t rise to it. He just shakes his head once. “You’re pissed. You’re allowed to be. But she’s standing right here. Don’t talk around her; don’t talk like she’s a child who needs translating.”
That hits Griff hard enough to make him deflate half an inch.
Then Knox glances at me, eyes steady and warm. “Tell us where you want us.”
My heart stumbles.
Jace watches the whole thing in silence, jaw tight enough to crack. And for the first time tonight, I see something in his eyes, not anger or defensiveness.
But regret.
Deep, quiet, suffocating regret.
“Sierra,” he says, voice rough, “I didn’t want… this isn’t how I wanted this to go.”
I force my eyes to the floor. “Neither did I.”
The words hang between us heavy and honest and past saving.
Griff laughs once, humorless. “You hear that? That’s what’s left when someone doesn’t choose you.”
“Enough,” I whisper, voice thin. “Please.”
Griff swears under his breath, runs a hand through his hair, and looks away like he’s trying to hold himself together.
Jace steps forward a fraction, hands still buried in his pockets. “She’s right. We don’t need to do this.”
“You already did this,” Griff fires back.
Knox steps closer, not touching anyone, but placing himself directly between the two men now, calm and immovable as a wall. His presence sucks the fuse right out of the room.
“Griff,” he says quietly, “help her. That’s why we’re here.”
Griff’s jaw twitches, but eventually he nods once, a clipped, reluctant surrender.
He turns toward the hallway.
Knox doesn’t move yet. He stands there with me for another breath, eyes searching mine. Soft. Careful. Present in a way I’ve never had from anyone but him.
“You okay?” he murmurs.
The question isn’t light. It’s weighted. It sees straight through me.
“I’m fine,” I lie.
He gives me a look that says he knows it. But he lets it go. He turns, moving toward the boxes like he’s been carrying my weight long before today.
Jace lingers behind, one hand braced on the doorframe. “Sierra…”
I stop.
He doesn’t step closer. Doesn’t reach for me. He just stands there in the doorway of the life we tried so damn hard to build.
“I’m sorry,” he says quietly.
For what?
For not choosing me?
For choosing too late?
For something neither of us could fix?
For the thing I haven’t admitted to anyone, not even myself?
The ache presses hard against my ribs. “I know,” I whisper.
It’s all I can give and it's all he can take.
Behind us, Griff’s voice booms from the hall. “Who taped this box? A blind toddler?”
Knox laughs under his breath. It’s soft. Warm. A little like sunlight.
Jace flinches again.
And in that tiny, devastating moment, I finally understand the thing Griff’s been screaming all along, the thing I’ve been refusing to face.
We weren’t broken because we didn’t love each other.
We were broken because we never loved each other right.
“Come on,” Knox calls gently. “Tell us where the rest is.”
I nod once, mostly to myself, and step away from Jace, leaving him in the doorway.
Leaving something else behind too.
The last thread snaps quieter than I expected.
But it snaps all the same.
The house goes quiet again after the front door shuts behind Griff and Knox.
Quiet, but not peaceful.
Quiet in the way a room feels after someone yells, the echo still hanging in the corners.
I’m alone now. Or… alone enough.
There’s just one box left. One stupid box with the last pieces of a life I tried so hard to make work.
The framed photo of us at the lake, the one we took before things got complicated. The throw blanket he bought me when I said I hated how cold the leather couch got. A mug from some tiny coffee shop we found on a road trip when we still laughed easily.
My hands hover over all of it before I pack each piece away. Slow. Careful. Final.
Griff’s words still ring louder than any of it.
You broke her.
He wasn’t wrong. But it wasn’t the whole truth either.
Jace didn’t break me on his own, we cracked together, slowly, quietly, under things neither of us ever said out loud.
I loved him. God, I did. I built plans around us, routines, futures I thought we could grow into.
But I also asked him to marry me when part of me already knew the foundation wasn’t solid.
When I was carrying a truth he never deserved, a truth that wasn’t his to carry at all.
I kept pretending time would make it easier.
Pretending I could be what he needed. Pretending he could be what I needed too.
But deep down, I knew he never chose me first. And the part that twists hardest is knowing I didn’t choose him that way either.
Some quiet piece of my heart was tugging somewhere else…
toward someone steady. Someone who made me feel seen without me trying to earn it.
Someone I told myself I couldn’t want, not when I was building a life with a man who thought he was going to be a father.
So no, he didn’t break me. I broke us too. And maybe that’s the part that hurts the most.
I close the last box and tape it shut.
Footsteps creak in the hall behind me.
I turn.
Jace stands there, hands shoved into his pockets, shoulders tight, eyes darker than I’ve seen them in months. He looks at the box, then at me. Then away.
“You done?” he asks.
His voice is low. Rough around the edges.
“Yeah.” My throat works around the word. “That’s the last of it.”
He nods once. Just once. Like anything more might crack something open between us.
For a second, neither of us moves.
Then he steps aside so I can pass.
The gesture is small.
But it’s everything.
The final proof that we’re ending the only way we ever really existed. Quietly, without dramatic apologies or grand declarations.
Just two people letting go.
I lift the box, its weight steadier than I expected, and carry it toward the door. My boots are soft against the hardwood, each step pulling at something in my chest.
When I open the door, the world is brighter than it was when I started packing.
Cool air rushes in.
Knox is waiting at the bottom of the steps, leaning against the rail. He straightens when he sees me, chin lifting the slightest bit like he’s been tuned into every movement inside this house.
“You good?” he asks quietly.
I nod, even though my body feels both too heavy and too light. “Yeah.”
He takes the box from my arms without asking, he turns toward my car. He’s just trying to ease what he can. He sees I’m barely holding it together, and the box… it’s the only part he can take from me.
He sets it gently in my back seat and shuts the door.
Griff’s truck rumbles in the driveway, and he’s already in the driver’s seat, jaw tight, staring straight ahead like if he looks anywhere else he’ll break something.
Knox heads toward the truck with my box. I move to follow him but stop when I feel eyes on my back.
I turn.
Jace stands in the doorway, hands still in his pockets, shoulders slumped in a way he probably doesn’t realize is visible. He’s not trying to stop me. He’s not reaching for me. He’s just… standing there.
Holding a silence we’ve been building for months.
His eyes meet mine.
And for a single breath, everything slows.
The weight of years.
The ache of almosts.
The truth we never managed to untangle.
He opens his mouth, once, then again, but nothing comes out. His jaw works, like he’s fighting through something he’ll never say aloud.
I offer a small, tired smile. The kind you give someone you loved once but can’t carry anymore.
“Take care of yourself, Jace.”
He swallows hard. Nods once. “Yeah. You too.”
Knox is by the truck now, waiting.
Not pulling.
Not rushing.
Just waiting.
I turn back toward my car.
I don’t look over my shoulder again, as I open the driver's side door and get in, not when I shut it and not when I start the engine.
I don’t look back because if I do… I might not leave.
Griff’s truck pulls away first, tires crunching softly on the gravel. A beat later, I follow.
But I still feel it.
The weight of his eyes.
Whatever held us together is already gone.
All thats left is the distance between us.
As the house shrinks in the mirror until it disappears completely, something inside me finally exhales.
Some endings don’t break you.
They free you. And maybe this was finally ours.