Chapter 34 #2
“I thought I was over it,” he says. His voice is quieter now, hollowed out by exhaustion. “I thought I’d dealt with it years ago.”
I stand behind him, close enough to touch him, but afraid that doing so might cause him to shatter.
“I went back to school. I went to college. I built the company. I made a life that worked.”
He shakes his head slowly. “I don’t wake up thinking about it. I don’t avoid cars. I don’t have nightmares.”
He looks down at his trembling hands. “I didn’t know this was still in me.”
My heart aches so fiercely that I press one palm against my chest. “It makes sense that it is.”
“No.” He turns around. The grief in his face stops me. His eyes are red, though no tears have fallen. His expression is twisted with anger, but none of it is directed at me. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“It does,” I reply gently.
“I knew you were probably fine.” His voice rises slightly. “I knew your phone had probably died. I knew the stores were crowded. I knew there were a dozen completely normal explanations.”
He drags a hand through his hair. “But all I could see was you lying somewhere alone while I stood here, doing nothing.”
I take another step toward him. “That doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you.”
“It means there’s something I cannot control.” The sharpness in his voice fades as quickly as it appeared.
He looks devastated by his own admission. “I’ve spent my entire life making sure I can control what happens next.”
“That isn’t possible.”
“I know.” He laughs once, broken and exhausted. “I know that.”
I reach him and place both hands on his chest. His heart pounds beneath my palms. He looks down at them as though he cannot understand why I am still touching him.
“You were scared,” I say.
“I was out of my mind.”
“You thought something terrible had happened because something terrible had happened before.”
“That does not excuse it.”
“I’m not trying to excuse anything.” I wait until his gaze lifts to mine. “I’m trying to understand you.”
The anger leaves his face. The fear that replaces it is worse.
“I didn’t know,” he says.
“What?”
His eyes move over my face slowly, taking in every feature as though he is trying to memorize me.
“I didn’t know I could feel this way about someone. Before you and Liana, it was different.”
My breath catches. He looks almost ashamed of the words.
“I’ve cared about people. My father. My friends. But this is different.”
I am afraid to move. Afraid even breathing too loudly will make him stop.
“You and Liana are so much more to me. I didn’t realize loving so hard would make me like this.” He steps closer, until barely any space remains between us. “I was afraid of losing you.”
Tears run down my face. One slides over my cheek, followed by another. Dean watches them fall but does not lift his hand to wipe them away.
His own hands remain at his sides, clenched, as though he does not trust them.
“I love you.”
The words are quiet, so quiet that for half a second, I wonder whether I imagined them.
Then his face changes, and I know I did not.
“I love you,” he says again. “More than I ever planned to love anyone.”
Every dream I have carried since I was fifteen seems to burst open inside me.
Dean loves me.
The man I used to watch at summer barbecues. The man whose name I wrote in the margins of notebooks and immediately scribbled over so no one would see. The man I thought would never look at me as anything more than the kid who grew up next door.
He loves me.
I should be happier than I have ever been.
Part of me wants to throw my arms around him, kiss him, and tell him I have loved him in one form or another for what feels like half my life.
But he doesn’t look relieved about it. He looks terrified.
The realization tempers the joy before it can fully take hold.
“I love you too.” My voice trembles.
Dean closes his eyes. His face tightens, as though the words cause him pain.
I lift one hand to his cheek. “Look at me.”
He does, eventually.
I smile through my tears. “I love you.”
His lips part, but no response comes.
Instead, he covers my hand with his and holds it against his face.
For a few seconds, he leans into my touch. When he takes a step back, the loss of contact chills me.
“I never let anyone get close enough for this,” he says.
A hollow feeling opens in my stomach. “For what?”
“To matter this much.”
“Dean—”
“I thought I was protecting myself.” His gaze drops. “I told myself I was too busy for relationships. That I didn’t need one. That everything was easier without the complications.”
He rubs both hands over his face. “The truth is, I knew what love could cost.”
I shake my head. “Loving someone doesn’t mean you’re going to lose them.”
“My father probably believed that too.”
The words land harder than he intended. I can see his regret the moment he says them, but he cannot take them back.
“No one can promise you that nothing bad will ever happen,” I say carefully. “But you can’t spend your whole life refusing to love people because you might lose them.”
“I managed to do exactly that for nineteen years.”
His voice has gone flat again. The wall is rebuilding itself in front of me, brick by brick.
“And were you happy?”
“I was functional,” he replies.
“That isn’t the same thing.”
He breathes out a sigh. “I know.”
“Then why would you want to go back to that?”
He looks toward Liana. She has fallen asleep in the playpen, her cheek pressed against the padded mat, one hand still wrapped around the soft block.
When he speaks again, his voice breaks. “Because tonight nearly destroyed me.”
My heart sinks. I move closer, but he shakes his head.
“I stood in this apartment and imagined every possible way you could have died.” His breathing becomes uneven again. “I called hospitals in my head before I could make myself pick up the phone. I saw the police at the door. I saw my father falling apart.”
His eyes meet mine. “I became him.”
“You had a panic response.”
“I lost control,” he replies.
“You were afraid.”
“What happens the next time you’re late?” The question comes harshly, but his face crumples around it.
“What happens every time you leave this apartment and don’t answer immediately? Am I going to do this to you again? Make you feel guilty for having a dead phone? Make you report every movement because I can’t handle not knowing where you are?”
“You haven’t asked me to do that.”
“Not yet.”
The words whisper through the room.
I stare at him. For the first time, I see the direction his fear is taking him.
Not toward anger, but toward retreat.
“You think you need to end us to protect me from this.”
His silence answers for him. Pain wraps around my ribs.
I force myself to breathe through it.
“Dean, loving me is not something you have to protect me from.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know you,” I answer, slightly louder than before.
“You know the version of me who believed he had this under control.” He looks away. “I don’t know this man.”
“You didn’t fail tonight, Dean. Something inside you got triggered.”
“That isn’t your burden to carry.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
I move closer slowly, giving him every chance to pull away, but he doesn’t.
“I want to be here for you.” The words make his eyes close. I touch his arms. “I want to help you through this.”
“You can’t fix it.”
“I know.”
That answer surprises him enough that he looks at me again.
“I am not trying to fix you. I am trying to love you.”
His lips press together. For one hopeful second, I think he will pull me into his arms.
Instead, he looks exhausted. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
My stomach drops even though I knew the words were coming.
“Do what?”
He gestures helplessly between us. “This.”
“Love me?”
His expression twists. “Love you and survive it.”