Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
Mara
This time, I don’t even try to stop the tears.
They slip down my face, curve along my jaw, and fall onto the page. I jerk back instinctively, like I’ve committed some kind of harm against a letter already carrying more sorrow than anyone should have been asked to hold.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, lifting the paper toward me, trying to protect it from myself. My fingers tremble as I smooth the damp wrinkles. “I don’t even know why I’m crying.”
“You don’t need to apologize,” Alec says quietly.
And then—before I can brace myself, before the thought even forms—his thumb is on my cheek, brushing away the tears.
It’s gentle. It’s tender. His thumb moves across my cheek with a softness I wasn’t prepared for, and the moment changes something in me, as if the whole room tips a fraction toward him.
Not because I understand what he meant by it, or because I think he meant anything at all.
But because my body recognizes the warmth of being cared for in a way my mind hasn’t caught up to yet.
His thumb lingers for a breath longer than it should.
Not long enough to call it a decision. Long enough to feel it everywhere—down my chest, through my nerves, unfurling something warm I didn’t invite.
I’m aware of his breath. The nearness of him. The way my heart forgets its rhythm entirely.
He feels it too—I see the moment it registers. His eyelids flutter, just once, like he didn’t mean to cross that boundary and now can’t find his way back.
He drops his hand slowly, almost unwillingly, like his fingers aren’t convinced they’re finished with me.
“I didn’t mean—” he starts, voice low and rough in a way I’ve never heard from him.
“I know,” I whisper.
Except I honestly don’t know. Not really. Because nothing about that touch felt accidental. Nothing about it felt like a mistake. It felt like instinct—pure instinct from a man who reaches before he thinks. Who probably cares before he admits it.
My chest expands and contracts too fast, too full, and too hollow all at once.
“It’s just . . .” He stops, looking away as if the words are fragile in his hands and he’s afraid to drop them. “You don’t have to apologize for crying.”
“Sometimes I feel like I ruin everything I touch.” The confession breaks loose before I can catch it. “Crying is for weak people. Sam—” The name burns on my tongue. I shut my mouth quickly. “The thing is that I ruin everything, you know?”
I don’t want to give Sam this moment. I don’t want Alec hearing the guilt that still clings to me, the unresolved arguments and doubts that never had an ending.
Alec’s head snaps up anyway. His reaction is immediate, sharp around the edges—not at me, but for me.
“Why would you say that?” he asks, brows knitting with a force that feels protective, not angry.
I look down, ashamed at how exposed I suddenly feel.
I choose to focus on the ruining things rather than the crying, even though both are things I would prefer not to discuss.
“It sounds ridiculous, but . . . when I was little, after I got sick, my parents divorced. My dad said once—‘She’s ruined everything since she arrived.’ I wasn’t supposed to hear it. ” I swallow thickly. “But I did.”
Alec’s expression goes from confused to .
. . angry? I’m not sure, but I continue almost whispering, “And it didn’t stop there.
A principal told my mom I was too much work.
And Sam . . .” My voice falters. “Sam was my husband—Mila’s dad.
We fought the night he died. I accused him of cheating.
He left. And he never came home. It was a car accident, but . . .”
The tears rise again, relentless.
“I almost lost my daughter,” I murmur. “And some days I feel like I’m still messing up everything for her. Even now. Even here.” My breath unravels. “I came to Seattle, and the first thing I did was ruin your peace.”
I brace myself for annoyance, distance, and some polite platitude.
Instead, Alec gets close. It’s close enough that I feel the warmth of him seep into the spaces I’ve kept cold for years. His gaze is soft in a way that terrifies me, because it holds no judgment at all. Only understanding. Only him.
“Mara,” he says, quieter than before. “You didn’t ruin anything.”
And God help me . . . the way he says my name undoes me all over again.
He moves closer.
Not touching me—just close enough for the air between us to shift, for something inside me to tighten and loosen at the same time.
“Mara,” he says again, softer now, almost careful with my name. “You’re allowed to grieve. You’re allowed to feel something for who Lina used to be. And I don’t believe for a second that your father understood what he was saying. People project their own failures onto whomever is closest.”
He hesitates, then adds, “And a car accident is just that. An accident. You didn’t cause it. You didn’t ruin anything.”
Something breaks open inside me. The loud sob comes before I can swallow it back.
Then another.
And suddenly I’m crying harder than I have in years, shaking like something is being pulled from deep inside my chest—something old, something buried, something I never let myself feel fully.
“I shouldn’t be crying this hard,” I manage between breaths.
“It’s allowed,” he says, firm but quiet. “It’s called grieving. And I know what happens when you bottle it up for years and pretend the pain doesn’t exist. Maybe this is your chance to let some of it out.”
“I don’t have time for this,” I murmur, wiping at my face even as more tears fall.
“You have to make time,” he says. “Before it tears you apart. You read about my fucked-up life. That’s what happens when you never deal with anything and pretend you’ve lost nothing.”
My breath catches.
He watches me for a long moment—studying me like he’s wrestling with something he doesn’t usually let himself feel. Something he’s tired of fighting.
And then . . . something in him shifts. It’s like a quiet surrender in his eyes, like he’s finally choosing the thing he’s been holding himself back from.
He moves closer on the couch, closing the space between us inch by inch.
His knee brushes mine. His shoulder lines up with my arm.
His breath warms the tiny distance left.
And then—without hesitation, without second-guessing—he slides an arm around my waist and gently pulls me across the space, guiding me onto his lap like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
When his arms settle around me, the whole world tilts. There’s no stiffness in him, no uncertainty. His exhale brushes through my hair, and for a heartbeat, it feels like he’s bracing both of us. Like he’s telling me, without speaking: Stay—just stay here.
And I stay.
My forehead drops to his shoulder, and the second I touch him, a sob tears out of me—raw, loud, impossible to contain—and he holds firm, unmoving, like he was waiting for the moment I finally let myself fall apart.
He gathers me closer, as if he’s done this before in the hours where no one else bothered to see him either.
“I got you,” he murmurs against my temple, tightening his hold like he means every syllable. “I’m right here, let yourself feel.”
My hands fist in his shirt because if I let go, even for a second, I’m afraid I’ll fall apart in ways I can’t come back from.
He goes completely still, leaving me with nowhere to fall except into him.
“If you need to cry like this all night,” he murmurs, his voice brushing my ear, “I’ll hold you.”
Something splits open in me at that—something I’ve kept locked behind years of being responsible, of being the strong one, of tucking my hurt away so it wouldn’t spill onto anyone else.
It rushes through me so fast it almost robs me of breath.
“I shouldn’t need this,” I whisper into his chest, ashamed and wanting and exhausted.
“Everyone needs this,” he answers softly. “Trust me. I would’ve given anything for someone to hold me like this when my life was falling apart.”
His hands slide up my back slowly, as if he’s taking some of the ache with him. Or maybe sharing it so I don’t have to carry it all alone.
“You’re safe,” he murmurs. “Right here. With me.”
Safe.
The word settles into a corner of me I’ve kept tucked away from everyone.
Time stops behaving normally. Seconds, minutes—they blur, lose their edges. My sobs taper off, but he doesn’t shift. He doesn’t loosen his arms. He doesn’t treat my hurt as a burden he needs to slip away from.
He just . . . he remains close and lets me breathe through the storm, unafraid of how unraveled I am in his arms.
And what shakes me most is the quiet in me that begins to uncoil—the part that’s been locked tight for years—because a piece of me is starting to want this closeness too.
It stirs a depth in me I believed had vanished—a feeling I never expected to touch again, one that edges far too close to hope.