Page 124 of Carrick
“And if we’re already past just wanting it to be real?” she asked.
I didn’t answer right away. I wanted to choose the right words. Wanted her to know she wasn’t the only one scared of the depth we were stepping into.
“I think it scares me,” I said finally. “How real it already feels.”
Bellamy’s fingers brushed mine, not by accident, and this time I took her hand fully.
There was no hesitation on her end. No walls. Just the soft, sure squeeze of her palm in mine.
“It scares me too,” she said.
The trees began to thin as we approached the edge of the clearing behind the house. Porch lights glowed softly through the branches, hazy and warm, but the spell of the night hadn’t quite broken yet.
Bellamy slowed her steps. I did the same.
“I don’t know how this works,” she admitted, her voice barely above a whisper. “Not when everything’s still uncertain.”
“I don’t think it has to be perfect,” I said quietly. “It just has to be honest.”
She nodded, slow and thoughtful, her gaze fixed ahead as the porch lights came into view. “And when this is over—when we’re not trapped here anymore—what then?”
I didn’t pretend to have the answer. Didn’t offer some shiny, packaged promise wrapped in good intentions.
“Then we keep choosing it,” I said. “Every day. If you want to.”
We reached the steps but didn’t climb them. She stopped, turned toward me, the towel pulled tighter around her like she needed the pressure to hold herself in place.
Her eyes met mine, soft and steady. “I already do.”
And just like that, something inside me anchored. That single sentence wrapped around my ribs and settled there—quiet and certain. Like a promise neither of us had to say out loud to believe.
The door creaked open then—Maddy’s voice filtering out, followed by Sully’s unmistakable laugh.
Bellamy smiled faintly, then glanced back at me.
“Thanks for not making me feel like a burden.”
“You’re not,” I said, not missing a beat. “You’re the gravity.”
Her breath hitched, but she didn’t respond. Just gave me that look—that small, fierce,don’t you dare break thislook—and slipped inside.
I stayed there, heart pounding too fast, water drying on my skin, wondering when she’d stopped being a guest in our house and started becoming something I couldn’t imagine walking away from.
The porch creaked beneath me as I settled onto the steps, towel draped across my shoulders, the night air cool against the last of the damp.
The house behind me had quieted—doors shutting, voices low, the others retreating one by one to their rooms or to the illusion of privacy, pretending they weren’t watching this unfold.
I leaned back against the railing and tipped my head to the stars.
Everything felt suspended, like that breath between a storm breaking and the sun coming back. No longer drowning. Not quite safe.
And Bellamy… she was the eye of it. Stillness and chaos in the same breath.
I closed my eyes.
Every part of me buzzed with her; her laugh echoing across the water, the shape of her hand in mine, the crack in her voice when she said she almost kissed me.
God, I’d wanted her to kiss me. But more than that, I wanted her to choose me. Not out of fear. Not because we were trapped together while the world burned beyond the trees. I wanted her to want this—want me—because something about the quietbetween us felt safer than the silence she was used to. Because, even if just for tonight, I was where she wanted to be.
