Page 197 of Let Me In

“But to take care of you. Because you matter too much to leave unprotected.”

And just like that, without any further explanation needed, I nod. It may be small, and silent, but it’s real.

And Cal—he sees it.

He holds me a little tighter.

“First,” he says, voice low against my hair, “if you leave the cabin… You tell me.”

My breath hitches.

Not because it feels wrong.

Because it feels like something new. Like someone wants to know where I am. Like someone would miss me if I didn’t come back.

Cal’s hand moves slowly up and down the curve of my waist, grounding me.

“Not because I think you’re going to do something reckless,” he murmurs. “Not because I don’t trust you.”

He pauses, just long enough for the words to land.

“But because I trust myself to keep you safe. And I can’t do that if I don’t know where you are.”

My fingers curl slightly against his chest.

He doesn’t press.

Just continues, soft and sure.

“Even if it’s just down the trail. Or to the shed. Even if it feels small. I want to know.”

I nod.

Small.

“I can do that,” I whisper.

His mouth brushes my temple.

“I know you can.”

There’s a pause. Not heavy, just waiting. Letting me breathe for a moment.

“There’s another one,” he says. “Every night, before bed… we check in.”

I lift my head a little, brows pinched. “Check in?”

He tucks my hair behind my ear, thumb lingering at my jaw.

“Yes. Talk. Not just what you did that day.”

He tilts my chin so gently I almost don’t feel it.

“But how you feel. What’s sitting heavy in you. What you’re carrying.”

And god, I don’t know what to do with that. Not because I don’t want to tell him, but because I don’t know where I’d even start.

How do you check in with someone when your feelings don’t come in neat sentences? When your chest holds a whole weather system and you’ve spent your whole life learning how to make it look like sunshine?

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