Page 67 of You've Got The Love
Her smile falters for half a second, but she just nods. “Okay.”
Outside, the cold cuts through me, sharp and clean. The lake is black and still, the pines at its edge standing like sentries.
I hear her boots crunch over frost before I see her. She steps up beside me, close enough that I feel her warmth.
“Talk to me,” she says quietly.
I keep my eyes on the water. “I dreamed of Marieke again. The night Abel was born. Everything was fine, and then the alarms started—they said his oxygen was dangerously low. They rushed her out, shoved scrubs at me… and then the next thing I remember, I was sitting on the floor with my parents. Knowing she was gone.”
Her hand brushes my arm. “You’re not alone.”
My throat closes. “I’m terrified, Amber. Terrified that loving me will only break you. Terrified I’ll lose you the way I’ve already lost too much. I don’t know how to set that fear down.”
She looks at me with that same fierce determination Marieke once had. “Then don’t. Not yet. Let me carry it with you.”
For a moment, I almost believe her. I want to.
But the shadow inside me doesn’t move.
And I know this fight isn’t over.
Chapter 36
Amber
By the time the last of the daylight fades behind the trees, I’ve spent the entire day feeling the edges of Bas’s distance like splinters I can’t quite pull out.
When I woke this morning, he was lying beside me, eyes open, staring at the ceiling. At first, I thought he’d just been awake for a few minutes, but the look in his eyes told me different—the stillness in his body, the faint crease between his brows.
It didn’t take long to guess what had happened. He didn’t have to say the word “nightmare” for me to know.
He’s told me about that night before—about Marieke’s contractions starting normally, how everything had been fine until Abel’s oxygen dropped dangerously low. How they rushed her out, shoved scrubs into his hands, and then there’s just a blank. Nothing until he was on the floor with his parents, knowing she was gone.
I’ve heard the story before, but hearing it in the low, uneven way he told it this morning still made my chest ache. I could picture it. The alarms. The chaos. The moment it all shifted from normal to catastrophe.
And now, hours later, the shadow of it is still with him.
He’s on the sofa in front of the fire, one arm stretched along the backrest, gaze fixed on the flames like they might hold the answers he’s looking for. His profile is lit by the firelight, the sharp lines of his jaw and cheekbone casting shadows.
I take the seat beside him, curling my legs underneath me. I don’t say anything at first. The fire cracks, the logs shift, and he doesn’t look away from them.
“Bas?” I say softly, my voice breaking the quiet.
He turns his head, and there it is again—that shadowed look, that heaviness in his eyes.
“Yeah?” he answers, voice low, roughened by a day of not saying much at all.
“You’re here,” I tell him quietly, “but it’s like you’re not really here.”
Something tightens in his jaw. His arm shifts back slightly from the sofa cushion, putting the smallest sliver of distance between us.
“I’m scared, Amber,” he says finally, and the way he says it is like it’s pulled straight from somewhere deep. “Scared of losing you. Scared of what this whole mess means for us.”
My throat tightens. I know fear. I’ve felt it too—in different ways, for different reasons. But his fear has years behind it, ghosts behind it.
“I’m scared too,” I admit, reaching for his hand. His palm is warm, tense. “But I want to fight for us. For whatever this is.”
His eyes lift to mine, and for a heartbeat there’s something there—not quite hope, not quite surrender, just the brief flicker of both.
