He turns to me then, hazel eyes locking onto mine with a depth that steals my breath. In the half-light, his gaze holds something ancient and understanding, like he's carrying answers to questions I haven't learned to ask yet.

"You know what you do when the world crumbles around you, Len?" His voice is soft but unwavering, pulling me closer like gravity.

I swallow hard, searching his face like trying to read a language I once knew but have forgotten. "What?"

He lifts my hand, turning it palm-up in his own with a gentleness that makes my heart stutter. Slowly, he brushes his lips against the inside of my wrist, the gesture so tender it leaves me undone. Through that single point of contact, it feels like he's trying to pour all his strength into me.

"The only thing you can do," he whispers against my skin, before pressing another kiss to my palm. "You breathe it all in, and then you let it out. Because the more you hold onto it, the more it eats at you from the inside out, like poison in your veins. You can't let the fear, the hurt, or the pain win. You just have to learn to let it live by your side and acknowledge it when it's there, like an old scar. One that reminds you that you survived. You can't just give in when it wants to consume you like wildfire."

His words settle around us like a blanket heavy with truth. "It's not easy, but I think it's possible."

The faint glow from outside catches on his face, highlighting the bruise darkening his cheek and the split in his lip that looks like a crimson fault line. He's both breakable and unyielding in this light, a contradiction I can't look away from. His thumb traces patterns on the back of my hand that feel like secrets being written on my skin.

"You don't have to hold onto it alone anymore," he murmurs, his voice steady as bedrock but tender as dawn. "I can carry it with you. If you'll let me."

Something inside me shatters.

His words are a lifeline thrown into deep water, a promise that feels both impossible and inevitable as gravity. He sees me—every broken, messy part, all the jagged edges and dark corners—and he's still here, still holding on.

Nate Sullivan is my paradox, my calm in the chaos, the eye of a hurricane. The one person who can reach me when I feel unreachable. With his eyes on me like this, it makes me feel like I'm his whole universe condensed into flesh and bone. I know one truth that burns through me: I don't want to hide from him anymore.

We drive home in comfortable silence, his hand steady in mine like an anchor. Every gentle squeeze of his fingers says what words can't: I'm here. I still got you.