Chapter 32 #2
I think—no, I know—he would’ve been a really good dad.
I see it in the way he talks about Nora.
In the way he still gets a little choked up when he mentions Violet, like he never stopped being her dad, even if he never got to meet her.
There’s so much heart in him, so much goodness, and sometimes I wonder how he carries all of it around without falling apart.
I’d sworn I wouldn’t fall in love again.
That I wouldn’t hand over my heart—so unguarded, so fragile, so bare.
I’d convinced myself it was safer to stay in control.
Love, the way I’d known it before, was complicated and conditional.
It made me feel like I was too much and not enough all at once.
Like I had to bend and stretch just to be worthy of staying for.
But this? With Sawyer? It doesn’t ask me to be anything but who I already am.
It’s in the way my body settles against his at night, like it’s found the place it was always meant to rest. It’s when he tells me a story about his childhood and I find myself wishing I’d been there—wishing I’d known him then, too.
It’s the way I can feel his eyes on me in a room full of people, as if I’m the only one he sees.
It’s how just the thought of spending another day with him makes me feel like I’ve won some impossible lottery—like somehow I got lucky enough to exist at the same time as him.
I don’t know if he loves me back. He hasn’t said it, but I know that if he ever did—if those words ever left his mouth—I wouldn’t hesitate. I’d say them back before he could finish.
Somewhere along the way, my heart stopped belonging just to me. It found a home in him. And I haven’t felt even the smallest urge to take it back.
“Oh my god,” Lark says suddenly.
My eyes snap up to the screen. “What?”
She’s smirking now, in that annoying older-sister-by-proxy kind of way. “You love him.”
My hand stills, the lip liner clutched awkwardly between two fingers. “You can’t possibly know that.”
“I do.” Her voice is gentle. “Wren, come on. I’ve known you since you were five. That look on your face? That’s the exact look I’ve had on mine every day of my life loving your brother.”
I make a gagging sound and toss the liner onto the counter. “Well, thanks for that visual. Could’ve lived without it.”
Lark laughs, but when I glance back at the screen, her smile softens. She leans forward like she’s about to tell me something important.
“Okay,” she says. “I’m gonna give you some sisterly advice, and I want you to listen to me. Got it?”
I sit down on the closed toilet lid and set the makeup bag in my lap. “Alright. Fire away, wise one.”
“You deserve it. All of it. Every ounce of love Sawyer has to give you—you deserve it.”
I don’t say anything. Mostly because I’m shocked and not sure I can.
“You’ve spent your whole life thinking you have to earn things that should’ve just been given to you. Like love is some limited resource and you’re only allowed a little bit if you work hard enough or ask nicely. But that’s not how it works, babe.”
I swallow hard, my eyes trained on the tiled floor.
“You’re not too much. Or too complicated. Or too honest. You’re not a burden or an afterthought or some extra thing to manage. You’re someone that people are lucky to love. And Sawyer—he already knows that. So let him, okay?”
I blink up at her. My throat feels tight.
“I mean it,” she says. “You’re allowed to have this. You’re allowed to be happy.”
And just like that, I can’t hold it in anymore. I press my fingers beneath my eyes, trying not to smudge all the work we’ve just spent the last thirty minutes on.
Lark sees it, but she just smiles again and says, “Also, maybe add a little setting spray. You’re getting weepy on me.”
I let out a wet laugh. “Yeah, yeah. I’m on it.”
Lark grins, proud of herself—which, honestly, she should be. Then she claps her hands together and leans closer to the screen. “Alright. Now we’re gonna teach you how to use this curling iron without setting the hotel on fire.”
I glance warily at the metal wand sitting on the counter. It looks suspiciously like a medieval torture device. “If I burn my ear off, I’m blaming you.”
“Fair. But you won’t. We’re gonna start with small sections, okay? You don’t need to do your whole head, just a few pieces around your face to make it look like you put in effort.”
I nod, turning the curling iron on and watching the little red light blink to life.
“And when you’re done,” she adds, voice soft but sure, “you’re gonna put on one of those stunning dresses you brought. The one Miller picked that makes your ass look amazing.”
I snort. “She said it makes me look like I ‘have the secrets of the universe stored away back there.’”
“Exactly,” Lark says. “And then you’re gonna walk into that gala like a badass, because that’s exactly what you are.”
She pauses, eyebrows raised. “Got it?”
My chest is still a little tight, but I breathe through it and swat away a few stubborn tears with the back of my hand. The curling iron hums quietly in my hand, heating up like it’s waiting for me to step up.
I look at Lark’s face on the screen—steady, familiar, full of the belief I still don’t always have in myself—and nod.
“Got it.”
And maybe, for the first time in a long time, I actually do.