“Please,” Reid says, the first word he’s spoken since I came in this room. His voice is hoarse-sounding, and I think of the line from his letter, the one where he said he begged. I begged her. “Please, let me have a few minutes with her.”

Agent Tirmizi moves over to the table, stacking papers. After a beat, Micah follows her, and for what feels like actual centuries Reid and I stand in our respective spots, our eyes on each other while we wait. The on my heart is fully unfurled into the word it’s always wanted to be.

it beats.

“You know where to find us,” Agent Tirmizi says as she heads to the door.

Micah delays a beat, stops, and murmurs quietly to Reid, probably some reminder about what he can and can’t say. He gives me another apologetic look before he finally passes through the door Agent Tirmizi is holding open.

And when it clicks shut behind them, Reid and I are finally alone.

“Meg,” he says immediately. “Please don’t cry.”

“Am I crying?” I say. “I hardly notice anymore.”

He raises a hand through his hair. “I am so—”

“Reid,” I interrupt him. I step farther into the room, pausing briefly to set the pages of his letter onto the bed. But then I move to him. I stand directly in front of him and look at his gorgeous, stern, triple-take face. His sad eyes. I reach out and circle my fingers around each of his wrists. I tug his hands loose from his pockets.

“It’s okay,” I say.

He lowers his head, his hair falling over his brow.

“I have done so much damage,” he says, almost a whisper.

“It’s okay,” I repeat, and I step into him more. I pull his wrists toward me and wrap them around my lower back.

And then I put my arms around him.

The best way to describe what happens to Reid’s body next is to say that he . . . slouches. As though he has been relieved of the most massive weight on those broad shoulders, he bends over me, his back curved, his head pressed into my hair, his arms holding me as though I’m the one thing in this whole entire world keeping him upright. Beneath my hands his back expands and contracts with great, heaving breaths, and I tighten my arms; I hold him together through whatever this is. I want to say, Reid, don’t cry, but also I want to tell him he can cry all he wants.