Page 101 of Let Me In

Low.

Wrecked.

“Emmy.”

I go quiet.

“If you don’t say no,” he says slowly, “I’m coming to get you.”

I blink, eyes already stinging.

“I don’t know how to say yes,” I whisper.

It breaks something in me to admit it.

Because I want to. God, I want to. My fingers clench the blanket beside me, knuckles tight. A sharp breath catches in my throat, stuck somewhere between want and fear.

But the words don’t come easily when you’ve spent your whole life swallowing them. When every time you asked for something, it was too much. When the silence became a kind of safety.

And now here he is.

Offering something I never thought I’d be allowed to want.

Me.

My dogs.

My trembling hands and the mess in my chest and the echo of a man still shouting on the other side of the house.

I wait for him to pull away.

To say okay, sweetheart or just hang in there or I understand.

But instead—

He breathes once.

Then says—

“You don’t have to.”

Three words.

But they wrap around something raw and wounded inside me like a bandage made of light.

“You don’t have to,” he says again, quieter this time. “You don’t have to be ready. You don’t have to explain. You don’t have to earn it.”

My hand comes up to cover my mouth, trembling against my lips. It’s cold—colder than I expected—and I press it tighter, as if I can hold the feeling in, keep from shattering with it.

Because I’m crying now.

Not loud.

Not broken.

Just relieved. My chest loosens, the weight pressing down on me easing with every breath. My shoulders drop, and warmth creeps into the spaces that had gone cold.

“You don’t even have to ask me to come,” he adds, steady and sure. “Because if you don’t say no, Emmy—if you don’t tell me to stop—I’m already on my way.”

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