Chapter 17 #2
He opens his mouth, but I don’t give him space to answer, the dam has broken and everything rushing out at once.
“You don’t get to disappear for seventeen years and then come back like this,” I continue, my voice tight with barely contained emotion, each word precise despite the tremor beneath them.
“You don’t get to touch me, look at me, make me feel things I worked half my life to bury, and then act like no time has passed between us, like we can just pick up where we left off. ”
I step closer, the room suddenly too small to contain what’s between us, the air heavy with unspoken words and shared history.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done to me?
” I ask, my voice breaking despite my effort to hold it together, to maintain the control that has defined my life.
“Professionally. Publicly. Personally. I need to know why, Malik, and don’t lie to me.
Don’t give me any bullshit excuses about charity and two artists with vested interests.
Don’t dress it up in PR language and career strategy. Tell me the truth.”
Silence stretches between us, taut as a wire. Then his shoulders sag, just slightly, the performer’s posture giving way to something more vulnerable, like he’s been waiting for this moment as much as I have, carrying the weight of it through every city, every show.
“Because I love you,” he says quietly, the words stripped of everything but raw honesty.
The words hit harder than I expect, knocking the wind from my lungs, stealing the anger that had been propelling me forward.
“I always have,” he continues, his voice steady but stripped bare, exposed in a way I’ve never heard from him before.
“I loved you before everything fell apart. I loved you after you walked away hating me. I tried to outrun it, drown it in noise and bodies and bad decisions, but you were always there. Every song you released, every note you played, it was you reminding me of what I lost.”
My throat tightens painfully, a vise around words I can’t form.
“I took your composition because I was afraid,” he admits, the confession seventeen years in the making.
“I knew you were better than me. I was afraid you were going to leave me behind no matter what I did. I told myself it wouldn’t matter, that it was just one song, that we’d make more together.
I was wrong. I was a scared kid that did something stupid without thinking it through.
It doesn’t excuse my actions. Fuck, Julian, I am so sorry.
I know it doesn’t make up for changing your life so irrevocably. ”
He swallows hard, eyes never leaving mine, refusing to look away from the damage he’s acknowledging.
“When I realized what it cost you, it was already too late,” he says, his voice carrying the weight of years of regret. “This tour, this album, it was my way back to you. Even if you never forgive me. Even if all we ever had again were these moments onstage, separate but together.”
The room feels charged, heavy with everything we have avoided for nearly two decades, with the truth we both carefully stepped around.
I should be furious. I am furious, but beneath the anger is something older, something that aches with recognition, with the echo of what we once were to each other.
“You don’t get to decide that for me,” I say hoarsely, my voice barely above a whisper.
“I know,” he replies, no defense, no justification. “That’s why I’m telling you now. You asked and I’ve laid it all out for you. My heart is exposed and raw. Do with it what you will.”
The words hang between us, fragile and devastating in their honesty. Before fear can reclaim its grip, before I can retreat into habit and self-preservation, I close the distance between us, moving before thought can intervene.
I kiss him. This time, there is no hesitation.
No surprise. Just the collision of everything we have been holding back, years of longing and resentment and unfinished business pouring into the contact.
His arms wrap around me, strong and certain, pulling my body flush with his and he sighs into my mouth.
The exhalation of relief, steady and sure, as if he has been waiting for permission I was never going to give, as if this is the homecoming he’s been seeking.
It is heavy with meaning. It is intentional in ways our first kiss wasn’t.
It is terrifying in its potential to unmake everything I’ve built.
I pull away, breath coming fast, panic flooding in at how easily I could lose myself in him again, at how quickly the barriers I’ve constructed could crumble.
“I can’t do this,” I say, my voice shaking with the effort of restraint. “Not until I understand what it will cost me. What it means for everything else. What happens if I let myself want you again? Malik. . .I could lose everything.”
His hands fall away slowly, reluctantly, leaving cold air where his warmth had been.
“I’ll wait. I’m not asking for more than you’ve already given me. For now, that’s enough. I’m not going anywhere, Julian,” he says quietly, the promise in his voice unmistakable.
I turn and leave before I can change my mind, before the pull of him becomes too strong to resist, before I surrender everything I’ve protected for so long.
Behind me, the door closes softly, but the truth we finally spoke follows me down the hall, impossible to outrun.
There is no pretending anymore. I want to give him more than just this moment.
I don’t want to run from him, from what we could become after all the dust of our past settles.
The fear of what comes next is overwhelming, threatening everything, but whatever comes next will change my life.
The realization settles into my bones with terrifying certainty.
Damn the consequences. I have lived for everyone else except for me. I have given everything to appearances, to expectations, to the fear of losing what I’ve gained. I am not going to lose the love Malik wants to give me freely, not again, not when it’s being offered without conditions or demands.
For the first time in seventeen years, I let myself imagine a different ending to our story.