Page 85 of You've Got The Love
“You need to let Amber decide that. She clearly thinks you’re worth the risk.”
Her words sink in. “What if my past breaks us?”
“Then you face it together. Love’s never easy, brother. But you’re stronger than you think.”
I sigh. “I worry about Abel. He’s never seen me with a woman before.”
“You’ll figure it out. You always do.”
Her words settle into the quiet like a fragile promise—that maybe I can find my way forward. Not just as a father, but as a man who can love without fear.
Later, I call Amber. The line clicks, and for a moment there’s only quiet—no rush to fill the space, no easy greeting—just her breathing, slow and measured, like she’s holding something in.
Her voice finally comes, calm but tired. “I’m on my way home.”
Relief tries to push its way in, but it’s short-lived. There’s weight in her tone, something I know I won’t like.
“But, Bas…” She pauses, and I can almost hear her swallow. “We need to go back to our own lives for now. I need to figure out who I am outside all this.”
My chest tightens hard enough to hurt. “You want to go back to how we were before? No fighting for us?”
She hesitates. I can hear the wind through her phone, the sound of her shifting like she’s bracing herself. “No, Bas. I want you—more than I’ve ever wanted anyone. But wanting you doesn’t erase the last few weeks. We’ve been running, hiding, waking up every day and wondering if it would be our last. I don’t know who I am without that fear in my veins. I need to breathe. I need to heal.”
I almost cut in—tell her we can do that together—but something in her voice pins me silent.
“You’ve been my safe place in the middle of hell,” she continues, “but I can’t ignore that you’ve pulled away before. I know why—you were grieving, you were scared—but it still hurt, Bas. And I can’t keep putting myself in a position where I’m waiting for you to decide if you can stay.”
My hand tightens around the phone. I open my mouth, but she beats me to it.
“And it’s not just me,” she says, softer now. “You need to heal, too. You’ve carried your grief for so long it’s like part of your skin. I know you loved her. I know losing her broke you. But I can’t be the one you lean on if you’re still half in that past. You need to know—really know—if you can move forward. Not for me. For you.”
Her words slice through me, clean and deep. I want to argue. I want to tell her she’s wrong. But the truth is, I don’t know if she is.
“You think I can’t move forward?” I ask, my voice low.
“I think you might be able to,” she says carefully. “But I think you need the space to prove it—to yourself, and maybe to me. I want us, Bas. God, I want us. I just don’t want us when we’re still bleeding from everything we’ve been through.”
My throat feels too tight. “If that’s what you need, I’ll respect it. Just… know I’m here. Always.”
“I know.” Her voice wavers, and for a second, I think she might take it back. But she doesn’t. “Maybe when we’re ready, we’ll find our way back.”
The call ends. I stay there, the phone heavy in my hand, the silence in the van pressing in until it feels like I’m breathing through concrete. Outside, the world keeps moving, indifferent to the fact that mine just shifted off its axis.
I stare out the windscreen, feeling the weight of what could have been—and what still might be—just hoping she’s wrong about the one thing I can’t bear: that by the time I’m ready, she won’t be here to come back to.
Amber
The ferry pulls intoHarwichjust as the sun crests the horizon, the light soft and watery against the waves.England. Home. It feels like I’ve been gone for months instead of weeks, and yet nothing in me feels like it did before.
Dad is beside me on the deck, his leather cut flapping in the early morning wind. He hasn’t said much since we leftNorway. I know he wants to, but maybe he understands that my heart is somewhere else—torn and raw.
His phone buzzes in his hand, and he lifts it to his ear. His voice is low, rough. He only walks a few steps away, but his eyes never leave me.
“We’re still diggin’ into how the fuckin’ Reapers found them. That don’t just happen. Somebody talked.”
Dad listens, jaw tight, then shakes his head at whatever’s said on the other end. “Could be one of ours, could be one of theirs. Either way, I’ll find out. This don’t get buried. And when I do, they’ll wish they never spoke my daughter’s name.”
He ends the call, slips the phone back into his pocket, and pulls me into his side. The silence between us is broken only by the cry of gulls and the churn of the ferry below.
