Chapter 23 #4
Austin sighed, letting the silence stretch long enough to hurt before he shook his head.
“Of course I didn’t know, Blair. I don’t think I would’ve been able to function if I had.
” Relief flickered, briefly. “But…” he continued, and I waited.
“Levi told me Cherry went here. He didn’t mention you. I think he knew it was… complicated.”
“Complicated?” I repeated, lifting my brows.
I was searching for answers without asking the question directly.
Austin exhaled, tilting his head as he studied me.
I recognized the look instantly. He was deciding how much of the truth I was allowed to have, and I hoped he’d give me all of it. Even if I understood why he might not.
“I did what I told you I was going to do, Blair,” he said.
“I told you I was going to climb my own mountains—and I did. I climbed those fucking mountains. But it was harder than I thought. So much harder than I ever thought it would be.” He swallowed, his jaw tightening.
“That hike up the mountain turned into an expedition. And every time I thought I was finished, there was another mountain waiting at my feet.”
A frown pulled at my lips as I listened, feeling the truth of his words settle deep in my chest. I could hear it all in his voice—his struggle, his pain, his exhaustion.
“But there was always one constant, Blair,” he continued, “I thought of you with every single step I climbed.”
I could feel the confusion on my face as Austin finished his sentence.
Of course, his words had made my heart lift, and my stomach drop, but mostly, I was confused.
Austin knew it too. I could tell by the way he was reading me again, his eyes scanning my face like he was trying to translate something I hadn’t said out loud.
He didn’t speak, though. Which was rare for him.
Or at least, rare for the Austin I used to know.
“Did you really?” I finally asked, my voice low with disbelief. “Did you really think of me this whole time?” I spoke the words because from my perspective, I had been gone from Austin’s life. Gone long enough that he had never bothered to call.
“Yes,” he answered immediately, his words nearly overlapping mine. “Yes, Blair. I thought of you every day. Every fucking day.”
I tilted my head, my eyes dropping as I looked at him. There was nothing in his expression that made me doubt him. Nothing in his eyes, anyway. Only in his actions.
“So…” I started, already hating the words forming in my mind. In all the versions of this conversation I’d played out over the years, I had never wanted to say them. No girl ever wants to say these words.
“Why didn’t I call you?” Austin asked, saving me from having to.
My eyes grew heavy as I blinked once, then nodded.
Because this was it. The question that had lived in my chest for years.
The one I had never had an answer for. Good or bad—I was finally about to have one.
Austin let out a slow, heavy breath. And I had the feeling that from the moment he’d seen me in Seren’s apartment, he’d known this question was coming. Whether I asked it, or not.
“I wanted to,” he said quietly, his gaze steady on my face. “Every day, I wanted to.”
“Why didn’t you?” I pressed, my body begging for the answer I had carried for so long. He exhaled again through his nose, shaking his head slightly, like he was still trying to find the right words.
“The first couple of months, I was so excited to call you. Every day I woke up and thought— I’m going to work through this, and then I’m going to call Yellow. You’re going to do the work you need to do, and I’m going to do the work I need to do. And then I’ll finally be good enough for you.”
A soft breath left my lips as he spoke, emotion pooling in my stomach. I couldn’t quite name it, it was just emotion, sharp enough that my eyes began to sting. My heart wanted to believe his words but my mind didn’t quite want to.
“And then,” he continued, “about three months in, I realized it wasn’t going to be that easy.
The more work I did, the more work I realized I still had left.
It felt like I was taking apart every inch of who I was—everything I’d been through, everything I’d done.
I’d take it apart, examine it, and then realize how rusted and broken it all really was. ”
I wanted to reach across the space between us and pull him into me, not out of habit or hunger, but because I could hear the weight in his voice and my body still knew how to respond to it.
It would have been easy. Instinctive. One step forward, one decision made without thinking.
But I didn’t move. I stayed where I was, hands folded in my lap, letting the distance remain, because wanting something didn’t mean I was allowed to take it anymore.
Not like before. We weren’t those people now.
We didn’t have the right to reach for each other just because it felt familiar.
“Why was it rusted?” I asked quietly. “Why was it broken?”
“I told you before, Blair, that I’ve done bad things,” he said. “But it was worse than that. Because I finally started to realize that maybe I wasn’t a good person who did bad things.” He sighed. “Maybe I was just a bad person.”
I shook my head immediately. “No,” I said simply. “You weren’t.”
Austin met my eyes again, a small smile flickering across his lips, gone almost as quickly as it appeared. “I knew you would say that.”
“It’s the truth,” I told him. “I’ve always known it. After everything you did for me, you could never be.”
“That’s what Seren said too,” Austin nodded, “but… I wasn’t convinced. I did a lot of bad, Blair. I did a lot of things that caused people harm. Just because I did some good too, well, to me, they didn’t cancel each other out.”
His expression shifted, guilt flickering across his face.
“And the more I realized just how bad of a person I was, the less I wanted to call you. Eventually, Seren pushed me into going to therapy,” he continued.
“She wouldn’t let me go to hers, she said her therapist was named Lucy. Or Lucky. Or something.”
I almost smiled at the thought that Seren and I might have landed in the same therapist’s office by name alone. I pushed the thought aside. Coincidences stopped surprising me a long time ago.
“But I found this old guy, Dr. Reeves,” Austin said. “And… he helped. Talking to him didn’t make the mountains smaller. It didn’t make the climb easier or shorter. There were still just as many of them, but with him, at least I had a compass.”
“Yeah,” I smiled softly. I knew exactly what he meant.
“He helped me realize that even though I had been a bad person, there was no way to undo it. I couldn’t go back.
I couldn’t change what I’d done. The only thing I could do was acknowledge it.
Take ownership of it. And make sure I never do it again.
” Austin’s eyes held mine. “I might have been a bad person,” he said quietly, “but that didn’t mean I couldn’t become a good one.
” He exhaled, something like relief in the sound.
“So I did. I became a good person, Blair. And I liked it. I liked becoming better. I liked who I was finally being.” His mouth twitched, almost a smile.
“And eventually, instead of not wanting to call you, I wanted to again. But every time I thought about it, I told myself—I can be better. I can climb more mountains before I call Blair. I can be so good for her, because that’s what she deserves. ”
A warmth spread through me, gentle and sure. I wasn’t disappointed in him. I never truly had been. Austin had always shown up the same way. Thoughtful. Intentional. Steady in the way he gave himself to what he cared about.
“And all of a sudden, it had been two years later…” he started.
“And we were strangers,” I finished for him, knowing exactly what he meant.
Austin frowned again and nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “We were strangers.”
We both inhaled at the same time, and the air felt thicker for it.
His words didn’t echo or demand anything.
They just existed between us, filling the quiet, changing the shape of it.
I could feel the pause stretch, the way neither of us moved, like acknowledging it meant committing to what it carried.
“How are you?” Austin asked, breaking the silence. “How is everything? How’s your life? I want to hear everything.”
“You do?” I asked before I had time to think.
“Of course,” he said softly. “Blair.” He hesitated, then corrected. “Yellow. You should know more than anyone that I never wanted us to be strangers.” My heart warmed at the sound of the old nickname. I swallowed the feeling down, hoping he couldn’t see how deeply it still affected me.
“I’m good,” I said, answering his question at last. “I’m really good.
And… it was a lot of work for me too. But I feel stronger now than I ever have.
” I paused, wanting to savor the truth before I said it out loud.
“I feel like I know who I am now,” I told him.
“I’m not pretending anymore. I know who Blair is.
And I really love her.” Austin’s smile broke wide across his face, bright and unguarded.
He nodded several times, like he was agreeing with every word.
“I’m so proud of you, Yellow,” he said, his voice full and sincere. “I mean, Blair. I always knew you would do it. I never doubted you would climb your mountains.”
“You know,” I smiled back at him, “Yellow has always been my favourite nickname.” Austin didn’t say anything at first. His smile stayed, but his eyes moved slowly over my face, like he was trying to decide how honest I was being.
“Really?” he asked finally. I could tell how much my words had landed.
“I always hoped I’d get to call you that again.
” I opened my mouth to answer, but I didn’t get the chance before he spoke again.
“Can I show you something?” he asked, something almost shy in his eyes.
“It’s… I just want to show you. I want to show you how serious my words were, Blair. ”
I nodded slowly. I wasn’t sure what I expected, but I couldn’t imagine what he could possibly have to show me.
He smiled at my answer, and to my surprise, he didn’t stand.
He didn’t move from the sofa at all. Austin raised his right hand and gently pulled the dark blue fabric of his costume away from the left side of his neck and chest. All I saw at first was his tattooed skin.
“What?” I asked, confused.
“Look,” he said quietly, dragging his index finger along his collarbone. “Look closer.”
I squinted, leaning in slightly, still not understanding—until I did. It was small. Plain. Neat black letters, just beneath his collarbone.
Yellow.
“Yellow?” I said it out loud, the word catching in my throat as my eyes traced it again. I looked at him, disbelief settling in. He was watching me carefully. I could feel his nerves now, the way he seemed to brace himself.
“It’s not,” he said, then stopped. He exhaled, like the words needed space before they could exist. “It’s not your name.
Not exactly. It’s what you were to me. Then.
And now.” I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. Something in my chest gave way, not sharply, but gradually, like a seam coming undone.
Awe, sadness, gratitude. They moved through me without order, without edges.
I stayed very still, letting the weight of it settle, letting the moment finish itself.
“What did I represent?” I asked, quieter than I meant to be.
I looked up at him, not searching for reassurance, but for understanding.
For proof that the space I’d occupied in his life had been real, that it hadn’t been a placeholder or a projection.
That whatever we were back then, whatever we had survived, had left something true behind.
“Something I didn’t let myself lose,” he said.
His eyes dropped for a moment, like the words required honesty before they could exist between us.
No shame. No regret. Just acknowledgement.
When he looked back up at me, there was no uncertainty there.
No apology either. “There were days it would’ve been easier to let it go,” he continued quietly.
“Days where it felt na?ve. Like something I’d already spent. ”
Austin inhaled once, steadying himself, then met my gaze fully. “Hope.”
A quiet laugh left me, low and unguarded.
Not because it was funny, but because something inside me finally made sense.
I closed my eyes for a moment, letting the feeling settle instead of pushing it away.
Some memories don’t rush back. They return carefully, like they’ve learned how fragile you are.
I turned slightly, reaching for my purse.
My fingers slipped inside without hesitation, finding what they were seeking with ease.
I didn’t have to look for it. I had carried it through dorm rooms and apartments, through good days and the ones that barely passed.
I wrapped my hand around it, feeling its smooth weight against my palm, and then held it out to him. Slowly. Deliberately.
The small pink stone rested there, worn softer than it used to be, dulled by time but not diminished by it.
Austin saw it immediately. I watched recognition move across his face, quiet and unmistakable.
His expression shifted, like something old had surfaced and refused to sink again.
He didn’t ask what it was. He didn’t need to.
He looked at me then, really looked at me, and there was a question in his eyes that didn’t need words.
I answered it just as quietly. Once I stopped waiting for fate to control me, I had to carry something else.
“Hope.”