Chapter Seven
He Falls First
Olivia
There are voices you never forget.
They crawl under your skin and live in the cracks like black mold, waiting. It doesn’t matter how many miles you put between then and now, how many therapists or restraining orders or whispered promises of you’re safe now you stack like sandbags.
One word and you’re back there.
“Miss me, Livvy?”
The room tilts. I hate that fucking nickname.
The bed becomes the old beige couch. The ceiling turns into yellowed popcorn plaster. I’m twenty-five again, twisting my wedding ring around and around as he lectures me about how lucky I am. Lucky he puts up with me. Lucky he loves me enough to fix me.
Except now there’s another voice in the room.
A deeper one. Steady as a heartbeat. I’m here. Darren.
His hand is warm on my thigh, grounding me in the present when the past tries to rip me backward. I focus on that heat. That weight. The roughness of his palm. The faint callus that catches on my skin like reality’s little anchor.
“We need to talk about what you did to my house,” my ex repeats, his voice oily with satisfaction.
“I ... your house?” I echo, because echoing is easier than thinking. My hand tightens around the phone until the cheap plastic creaks.
“Don’t play dumb,” he snaps, temper flashing through the sugar. “You always do that. ‘Oh, I didn’t mean to, I didn’t know, I’m so sorry.’” He mimics my voice in a high, cruel falsetto. “Pathetic.”
Shame flares, automatic and conditioned. Darren’s fingers press more firmly into my leg. Not hurting but reminding.
I am present in the now.
I am here.
Not stuck back in my past.
The phone is lifted from my trembling hand and set to speaker phone. “Don’t talk to her like that,” Darren says calmly.
Not loud. Not posturing. Just ... fact. The silence on the other end is instant and electric.
Then a low laugh. “And who the fuck is this?”
Every muscle in my body locks. This is the part I used to dread. The moment he sensed something new, something he hadn’t accounted for, and the world rearranged itself around his jealousy like tectonic plates.
“You don’t get a name,” Darren says, still maddeningly calm. “You don’t get anything from her or from me unless she decides that is how she wants it.”
“Put her back on the phone,” my ex snarls, ignoring him. “Olivia.”
He uses my name the way someone uses a leash. I swallow hard. My voice works on old muscle memory. “I’m here.”
“That’s right,” he croons, rage tucked just under the syrup. “You’re here. And you’re listening. You always were a good listener when you tried.”
The past tries to climb up my throat.
No one else will ever want you. You’re hard work, Livvy. I deserve a medal for putting up with you. If I can’t have you, nobody will.
That last one comes with the scent of gasoline. My vision blurs.
“Olivia,” Darren murmurs, and my name sounds different in his mouth. Not a leash. A promise. “Breathe.”
I do. Air rushes in, shaky but mine. “What do you want?” I ask my ex again, steadier now.
“I want you to stop embarrassing yourself,” he snaps. “Running around crying victim. Telling people stories. Acting like I’m some monster.”
Darren’s jaw flexes.
“You set my house on fire,” I whisper.
A beat. Then he laughs. It’s the worst sound I’ve ever heard.
“That dump should’ve gone up years ago,” he says casually. “I was doing you a favor. Insurance will finally buy you something decent. You’re welcome.”
My stomach flips.
“You could’ve killed her,” Darren says, the calm in his tone thinning.
“Oh, please,” my ex scoffs. “Drama queen survived. Again. She’s like a cockroach, hard to get rid of.”
The word hits like a slap. Old-me folds instantly. New-me ... doesn’t. Because I’m not alone anymore. Darren squeezes my thigh once, giving permission, not direction. Because it is my choice how to handle this situation. Just like it always should have been.
I straighten. “I’m not yours,” I say quietly.
Everything on the line goes very still. “What did you say?” he asks, voice gone cold and sharp. This is what he sounded like all those times before he became the monster that almost broke me.
“I said,” I repeat, each word like a rung I climb out of a pit I’ve lived in for years, “I’m. Not. Yours.”
There’s a sound like teeth grinding. “You’re mine until I say you’re not,” he hisses. “You don’t get to rewrite history because you found some kid with a hero complex to fuck you...”
The phone is gone from my hand so fast I barely register the movement.
Darren holds it now. He doesn’t raise his voice. But then again, he doesn’t need to.
“Listen very carefully,” he says, and there’s something in his tone I’ve never heard before—quiet violence, contained like a storm in a jar. “You will never threaten her again. You will never call her again. You will never show up where she lives, where she works, where she breathes.”
My ex snorts. “I’ve heard about you fire boy. You’re what? Twenty? You think you’re a man because you carry a hose?”
Darren’s mouth curves. It isn’t a smile.
“You’re confusing me with you,” he says softly. “A man doesn’t terrorize a woman and call it love. A man doesn’t light fires because he can’t control his temper. A man doesn’t choke on his own insecurity and spit it at someone kinder than he’ll ever be.”
My heart slams, chest too tight for all the things I want to feel at once. Fear, gratitude, and disbelief, mixed with fierce, aching affection.
“You don’t scare me,” my ex spits.
“I don’t care if I do,” Darren replies. “But you need to understand something. She’s not alone anymore. You don’t get her fear. You don’t get her time. You sure as hell don’t get her body to target practice your cruelty on.”
He leans forward slightly, like the distance between him and the phone matters.
“And if you come near her again,” he finishes, low and lethal, “you and I will have a conversation you won’t enjoy.”
My ex laughs again, but it’s thinner now. “Cute speech,” he says. “You rehearse that in the mirror?”
The bravado in his voice can’t hide the thread of uncertainty I know so well. He hates not understanding the new variable. Hates not being the biggest thing in the room.
“I don’t repeat myself,” Darren says simply, and ends the call.
Just ends it. No shouting. No insults.
Just ... click.
The silence afterward roars.
I realize only then that I’m shaking. Not delicate trembling. Full-body tremors, adrenaline crashing through my system like a storm breaking.
Darren sets the phone down on the nightstand with careful precision, then turns back to me. His face softens instantly.
“Hey,” he murmurs. “Eyes on me.”
I do what he says, focusing on his face. Because my body has apparently decided that’s a safe place to land.
“You did so good,” he says, brushing messy hair back from my cheek with the backs of his fingers. “You didn’t fold. You didn’t apologize. You said the truth out loud.”
A choked laugh escapes me. “I also almost threw up.”
“Totally valid reaction,” he says solemnly. “I almost threw up listening to him.”
A wet sound slips out of me that might be a laugh, might be a sob. Maybe both. My hands tangle in his hoodie before I know what they’re doing, pulling him closer like gravity has opinions now.
He goes willingly.
His arms come around me, strong and sure, but not caging. Never caging. He leaves space where I need it and closes it when I lean in. I bury my face in his chest and breathe him in -—soap, coffee, smoke, something purely him that makes my ribs feel less like a trap and more like a home.
“It’s not over,” I whisper into fabric.
“I know,” he says. “But neither are you.”
The words crack me open. Tears spill, hot and unchecked, soaking into the fabric that separates us. Ugly crying. The kind that leaves your face blotchy and your nose running and your dignity somewhere under the bed collecting dust bunnies.
And he just holds me through it. No shushing. No “calm down” or “you’re okay” lies. Just steady, quiet presence and the occasional rough kiss to the top of my head like he can’t help himself.
When the sobs finally taper into hiccupped breaths, I’m exhausted in that bone-deep way grief leaves you. He shifts just enough to look down at me, thumb tracing my cheek gently.
“Water?” he asks.
I nod, because my throat feels like sandpaper and regret.
He presses a glass into my hand like he conjured it. I sip. My hands still shake even if it’s less now. He notices, but then again, it seems like he always notices. He cups the back of my neck, thumb moving in slow circles until the tremor eases.
“I’m sorry,” I mutter, because old habits die hard and mine are cockroaches too.
He arches a brow. “For what?”
“Falling apart. Again. On your bed. In your house. In your life.”
He snorts, incredulous. “Olivia, if you don’t start giving yourself as much grace as you give literal strangers who lose their library cards, I’m going to lose my mind.”
A reluctant smile tugs at my mouth. “Those people are monsters.”
“Exactly,” he deadpans. “And you forgive them.”
Silence falls again, softer now. “So,” I say, voice steadier, “what now?”
“Now,” he says, shifting into that focused mode that does terrible things to me, “we document. We tell the police he called and admitted to the fire. We loop in the investigators. We get the restraining order reinstated if you’re up for it. And we do not pretend this didn’t happen.”
Ice prickles under my skin at the idea of courts and paperwork and explaining. He sees it immediately and cups my jaw, tilting my face back to him.
“You don’t do any of that alone,” he says. “I can go with you. Or Aunt Dee. Or both. Hell, I’ll bring the entire firehouse if you want dramatic moral support.”
A laugh breaks out of me, fragile but real. “Pretty sure that’s overkill.”
“I like overkill,” he says. “It sends a damn good message.”
There’s a knock on the door and we both stiffen. Not like that. No panic. Just ... awareness.
Aunt Dee’s voice filters through, laced with worry she barely bothers to hide. “Everything all right in there?”
Darren glances at me, giving me the choice.
“Yeah,” I call, voice rough but functional. “We’re okay.”
The floorboard outside creaks in that specific way Aunt Dee uses when she lingers to eavesdrop. Then her footsteps retreat, probably to make tea weapons-grade strong.
Darren presses his forehead to mine again for a moment, just breathing me in like he needs it as much as I do. “I meant what I said,” he murmurs.
“About what?”
“All of it,” he says, and then his mouth brushes mine.
It’s nothing like the kiss earlier. That one was discovery. This one is claiming, of himself, of his own feelings, of the space he’s choosing to stand in with me. It’s still gentle, yes, but there’s steel under it. A vow without words.
I kiss him back because I don’t know how not to. When we part, he smiles that slow, devastating smile that makes me feel seen instead of examined.
“He wants what’s his,” Darren says softly, echoing my ex’s words with disdain. “Too bad you were never his to begin with.”
The fear is still there. There isn’t some magical cure that will just make it melt away. He didn’t banish my past with one phone call and a kiss. But it’s ... smaller. More manageable.
Held in place by calloused hands and a voice that calls me back to myself every time I drift.
“I want to go to the police,” I hear myself say, surprising us both.
His eyes light with quiet pride. “Okay.”
“I want...” My throat tightens and I push past it. “I want this on record. I’m tired of being quiet. I’m tired of surviving and calling it living.”
He nods, like I’ve just said something holy. “I’ll grab my keys,” he says. “You grab your courage.”
I laugh, a watery sound once more. “Where did I put that again?”
He taps my chest gently, right over my heart. “Right there.”
We stand. We move. Not out of fear. We’re not running, we’re walking into this chaos together.
And for the first time since the fire, and maybe long before it, I don’t feel like the girl waiting for the next match to strike.
I feel like someone holding a bucket of water and a very sharp tongue, ready to fight like hell for the life I finally want.
He falls in beside me in the hallway, not ahead, not behind. Side by side. I feel powerful and in control of my own life. And God help anyone who thinks they’re going to set me on fire again.