Page 110 of Carrick
“Would you take it back?”
I met her eyes. Grief. Guilt. The question she didn’t ask: Was I worth it?
“No,” I said.
She held my gaze, not testing or doubting—just seeing. Then she nodded again, like she already knew the answer. “I don’t think I’ve ever been seen like that,” she murmured. “Not before.”
The quiet between us shifted. Not just silence, but raw space—truth with nowhere to hide.
I crossed the room and sat beside her on the edge of the bed. She didn’t flinch. Her shoulders were curled in slightly, the blanket still clutched around her like armor she hadn’t decided whether to keep.
“You don’t have to carry this alone anymore.”
She didn’t look at me. Didn’t answer right away. Her eyes stayed fixed ahead—maybe seeing her brother running, or the wreckage of the apartment she grew up in. Maybe both.
“I’m not afraid to carry it,” she said finally. Her voice held. Just barely. “I just... I don’t want to disappear under it.”
That last word barely made it out. I didn’t speak. I just reached for her hand—not as a fix, not as a question. Just because. Because I knew what it felt like to stand in the rubble of something that used to be yours. To shrink under the weight of it. To feel yourself fading.
Her hand trembled as her fingers curled into mine, but she didn’t let go.
“I’m sorry you had to see your brother like that.”
Her eyes flicked to mine. No anger. Just grief—and maybe a trace of relief that someone else had witnessed it too.
“I needed to,” she said. “I needed the truth.”
“Still,” I said, my jaw tight, “you shouldn’t have needed to.”
This time, she didn’t argue. Because we both knew I wasn’t wrong.
We sat like that for a long time, saying nothing, doing nothing, just breathing the same air in the hush that followed the fire. She was still holding my hand when she shifted slightly; the blanket slipped off one shoulder as she leaned in—not fully, just enough to let her head rest against mine. Her temple pressed into the side of my neck, and I felt the echo of her pulse there, quick and fragile.
Her fingers tightened.
I wrapped my arm around her and pulled her closer, not to fix it, just to hold what remained.
I thought about speaking. About telling her she wasn’t alone, that I wouldn’t let her disappear into the dark, that I would stay even if the whole goddamn world turned against us. But promises are easy. Too easy. And nothing about this was.
Because this wasn’t about words. It was about presence. About stillness. About creating space for the ache and the aftermath to coexist. So I stayed quiet and let her fold into me, let her body settle like maybe, just maybe, she believed she could.
The weight between us wasn’t guilt. Not exactly. It was the truth—undeniable, heavy, and earned.
The storm had passed. But the wreckage was still here.
And with her fingers laced through mine and her breath warming the place where fear used to live, I knew this one thing for certain.
I would cross every line again—no matter the cost—if it meant giving her this.
22
Bellamy
The sheets were stillwarm when I woke.
Not in the way they are after a restless night, but the kind of warmth that comes from another body. One that hadn’t moved far. One that was still close.
Carrick.
