Chapter 20 Seth #2
“He’s not going to let this go,” I said. “Not because he’s my brother. Because he’s Nick. He needs something to be against. He will say I’m being manipulated. He’ll say you’re using me. He’ll say you’re doing it to get back at him.”
Damon’s mouth tightened, but he shook his head. “I don’t think he will. Seth.”
I frowned. “Why do you think that?”
“I spoke with Nick. Yesterday. I think he’s…not there yet, but on the right path,” he said.
I nodded gratefully. “I want him in my life, Damon. I don’t want to have to choose one way or the other.” I stopped short of telling him I wanted him at almost any cost.
“I know.” He took another step closer. The space between us tightened to a thread. “I walked away because you said it was over, and I believed that was what you needed from me. But I am not walking away again. Not from you.”
“Then what are you going to do?” I asked. I hated how small my voice sounded.
He looked at me without blinking. “I’m going to choose you. Even if you get angry with me. Even if it’s hard and messy and slow, I’m not asking you to torch your relationship with Nick. I’m asking you to stop letting his fear become yours.”
The words hit somewhere deep, somewhere that had been waiting a long time.
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. “You make it sound easy.”
“It is not easy,” he said. “But it is simple.”
I shook my head once, a helpless little movement. “You don’t get to be simple. Not with me.”
His mouth twitched. Not a smile. Something more nervous. More real. “I know.”
We stood there for a beat that stretched and thinned, wind hissing through branches, far-off laughter from somewhere on campus. The quiet between us was filled with everything we hadn’t said in years.
Then Damon reached into his jacket pocket. My body tensed automatically, a leftover panic that he might pull out something light and strange to soften the moment. Another little gift to hide behind.
Instead, he pulled out a folded piece of paper. A small rectangle, worn at the edges, like it had been carried for a while.
He held it out to me.
“What is that?” I asked.
His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “Open it.”
I took it carefully, like it might cut me. When I unfolded it, I saw his handwriting. A list.
It took my brain a second to understand what I was looking at.
Dates. Not calendar dates, but moments.
First sleepover. The first time I realized sleeping beside you felt better than sleeping alone. It was cold, but we shared the blanket. You spooned me. Your fingers on my back. Your breath in my ear.
Outside the science building. You walked out and I was already there with coffee. You pretended you weren’t glad to see me. I pretended I didn’t notice.
Thursday night argument. We fought about something stupid. You ended up on my floor, laughing so hard you couldn’t breathe. I remember thinking I wanted to hear that laugh for a long time.
The poison. You found the coolest gift.
First morning in the cabin. Sunlight on your hair. You didn’t freak out. I tried not to stare. Failed completely.
Our date at the vegan place. You were nervous. I was worse. You looked unreal in the candlelight, and I couldn’t stop wanting you.
Your lab week. You were exhausted and quiet. I brought takeout and sat with you until you leaned on my shoulder without thinking. I didn’t move for a long time.
My game. You in the stands. You pretending you were only there to kill time. I found you after and walked you home slowly, hoping you wouldn’t notice I never wanted to say goodnight.
And everything else. Every look. Every laugh. Every night you let me close. I kept all of it. I kept you, even when I told myself I shouldn’t.
My throat tightened so fast it scared me.
“I don’t understand,” I whispered.
“I started writing them after our trip,” Damon said. His voice shook in a way he was trying to hide. “At first, it was just so I wouldn’t forget. Then it turned into something else.”
“What else?”
He exhaled slowly. “A way to remind myself that this wasn’t nothing. That I wasn’t imagining it. That you weren’t imagining it. That we were doing something real, even if we wouldn’t say the word.”
I stared at the paper. My vision blurred. I blinked hard.
“You kept this?” I asked.
“Every day,” he said. “I kept thinking if I lost you again, I’d want to know I didn’t invent you. I didn’t just imagine us.”
My chest hurt. The cold air didn’t feel cold anymore. Everything in me felt raw and hot, like I had been stripped open.
“I’m not good at saying things,” Damon said, stepping even closer.
His hands stayed at his sides. He was giving me every choice.
“I am good at showing up. I am very good at touching you. I am good at trying to make you laugh when you look like you’re carrying the whole world.
But I’ve never been good at telling someone what they are to me. ”
I could not speak.
“I loved you when we were kids,” he said softly. “I didn’t know it was love. I thought it was a crush that never went away. I thought it was a bad obsession that would burn out if I kept busy enough. It didn’t burn out. It just grew.”
My body went still. My heart stuttered.
“I loved you the summer we kissed,” he continued.
“I loved you the next summer when you were eighteen and brave enough to touch me first. I loved you when you left for Chicago, and I told myself I would be fine. I loved you when I tried to replace you with noise and bodies, and it never worked. I loved you when you walked into that basement and looked at me like I was a miserable joke you couldn’t stop wanting anyway. ”
His voice caught. He swallowed, eyes on mine.
“I love you now,” he said.
The words were quiet, just Damon standing in front of me with the wind cutting at my face, saying it like he had finally stopped being afraid of the sound of it. So why was I afraid?
“I love you, Seth,” he said again, slower this time. “I love you in every stupid way I’ve ever tried to hide. I don’t want to be your secret fling. I don’t want to be a disaster you survive. I want to be the person you come home to. If you’ll let me.”
Something in me cracked so cleanly I almost laughed.
All the pressure in my chest, the old fear, the waiting, it all loosened at once. It didn’t vanish. It just stopped owning me.
I stared at him, breath coming in short pulls, chest rising and falling, tears burning my cheeks as they spilled. “You are such an ass for making me cry.”
His mouth twitched into an honest smile. “I know.”
I shook my head, and it felt like shaking off years. “We misunderstood each other so many times that we somehow stumbled into love.”
His eyes went bright, and I hated that it made mine go bright, too.
“We didn’t stumble into it,” he said. “I ran into it at full speed. And I kept pretending I was fine either way.”
I laughed, and it broke out of me before I could stop it. It was the kind of laugh that felt like crying in disguise. I pressed a hand to my face, then dropped it again because I was done hiding everything about myself.
“I love you, too,” I said.
Damon froze like he wasn’t sure he heard right.
“I love you,” I repeated, louder now, because he deserved to hear it without guessing. “I’ve loved you for so long it feels embarrassing. I just never let myself believe you could love me back.”
He stepped into me so fast I didn’t even have time to breathe.
His arms wrapped around my waist and pulled me close, hard enough to make the world tilt.
My hands found his jacket, then his shoulders, then his neck, not because I knew what to do with them, but because I needed to touch him to make it real.
He kissed me like he’d been waiting years and not just ten days. Slow at first, like he was checking if I was still here, then deeper, rougher, the way he kissed when he forgot to be careful.
I kissed him back until my knees went weak.
When we finally broke apart, we were breathing hard, foreheads pressed together, the cold forgotten.
“I’m not letting you go again,” he whispered.
“You better not,” I said, voice shaking. “I will actually kill you.”
He laughed, low and wrecked. “Fair.”
I felt the smile spread across my face before I could stop it.
I let out a breath, then another, then laughed again because I couldn’t help it.
“Come on,” he said, taking my hand. His grip was warm, sure, like he was never planning to let go. “You were going to the library. I’m not letting you hide tonight, but I will carry your books if it makes you feel better about your terrible life choices.”
I rolled my eyes, but I didn’t let go of his hand.
“You’re such a liar,” I said.
“Only to those I love,” he said, leaning in to kiss the side of my mouth.
We started walking, slow and unhurried, shoulders bumping, fingers locked. The campus lights blurred around us. The cold air felt softer, like the world had shifted into a shape that finally fit.
For the first time, I didn’t feel like I was sneaking through my own life.
For the first time, I wasn’t bracing for the end.
I squeezed his hand once, just to feel him squeeze back.
“Mine,” he said quietly, like he couldn’t help himself.
“Yours,” I answered, and meant it the way you mean a truth you would never doubt.
He looked over at me, smiling so openly it made my chest ache.
Neither of us looked away.