Page 198 of Let Me In

I swallow hard.

The words won’t come. Not yet.

So I nod. Because that’s safer, easier. Because maybe if I nod enough, he won’t ask for more.

But of course—he sees it. He always sees it.

His thumb stays at my jaw. Gentle. Unmoving.

“You don’t have to say it all, not all at once,” he says softly, his thumb still resting at my jaw while his other hand draws slow, grounding circles along my back. His body stays still, open—like he’s making room not just beside him, but inside him too. “You just have to let me make space for it.”

Something in me buckles at that.

Because space?

Real space?

To be messy and quiet and afraid, all at once?

No one’s ever handed me that before. Not without strings, or the promise being pulled back the second I need too much.

But Cal’s voice doesn’t pull away. It wraps around me.

“You don’t have to perform for me, little one. Not brave. Not cheerful. Not fine.”

My vision goes blurry.

“You just have to be honest. And I’ll hold whatever you give me.”

My breath shakes. He feels it—of course he does.

His hand moves up, cups the back of my head. Pulls me a little closer.

“This one might be the hardest,” he murmurs, his thumb sweeping absently along the base of my skull, voice almost too gentle to hold the weight of what he’s saying. “I know that.”

I nod again, small, my fingers tracing circles into the firmness of his chest.

Because it is hard.

Letting someone in like that. Letting someone see the ache before I’ve even named it.

“I see how quiet you get,” he says. “How small you make yourself when you think you’re too much.”

I blink hard. My throat is tight. My mouth too full of everything I don’t say.

“I see it,” he says again, firmer this time. “And I don’t want you folding in on yourself anymore.”

He pulls back just enough to look at me.

Not to watch me.

To see me.

“I want you to come to me when it’s too heavy. When your thoughts are loud. When you’re hurting.”

His hand moves over my chest, palm flat. Grounded.

“Here. Especially here.”

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