The rest of the afternoon passes in small, stolen glances and unfinished sentences. None of us say it out loud, but something in the air evens out again.
Dinner was easy after that. Carter did most of the work, somehow managing to keep the smoke to a minimum, though Haven managed to burn the garlic bread. I nearly set off the smoke alarm myself when I forgot the oven mitt wasn’t actually flameproof.
The second the sun dips lower behind the skyline, Haven yanks her hoodie over her head and looks at us with a soft, pleading expression. “Let’s walk. Please.”
We finish cleaning up the dishes and step outside. The air is sharper than yesterday, carrying that crisp edge. Leaves skitter across the sidewalk in shades of amber and rust. Music thumps faintly from a party a few blocks over, a car roars past with bass so loud it shakes the air, and a guy yells about a dog bolting into someone’s yard.
Haven threads her fingers through mine without asking. Carter walks on her other side, hand locked with hers, the grin on his face wide and impossibly satisfied. It’s annoyingly perfect.
We pass a couple walking a golden retrieverof courseand the guy does a double take at our little trio. I let a smirk tug at the corner of my mouth. Carter nudges her side lightly. “Think we look like a math problem?” he jokes.
Haven laughs and leans toward him. Carter leans down too, brushing his lips over hers in a soft, sweet kiss. I watch, that familiar ache stirring in my chest. She’s laughing against him and I know it’s not about me but part of me can’t stop wanting to be the one pressing into her lips.
I step a little closer, thumb brushing along the back of her hand, feeling her pulse, her warmth. Before Carter leans in again, I tilt my head and press my lips fully to hers. Her fingers tighten around mine, and I feel her shiver at the contact. She doesn’t break her grip on either of us. She’s mine in a different way, and I let the thought settle as we keep walking deeper into the evening, the leaves crunching underfoot and the sun finally dipping behind the horizon.
When we get back to the apartment, she kicks off her shoes and flops face-down onto the couch with a groan. “I’m never moving again.”
“You said that yesterday,” Carter chuckles, heading into the kitchen.
“And it was true then too.”
I toss her a throw pillow, which she catches and immediately hugs to her chest. Carter returns with a bowl of popcorn and those chocolate-dipped pretzels she keeps pretending she doesn’t love.
We all sprawl. Legs tangled and movie queued.
Nothing matters right now except this couch and the comfort of skin against skin and breath against breath. Until it does.
About twenty minutes in, I stand up. “I need a minute,” I say, quickly heading down the hall to the bathroom.
Haven starts to move, shifting up like she’s about to follow, concern tightening her features. “Tate—?”
Carter touches her arm gently. “Let him go,” he says. “He just… needs a minute.”
She hesitates, eyes glued toward the hallway. Then she nods, even if it looks like it hurts a little to sit back down.
I immediately blast the hot water in the sink, steam curls around the edges of the mirror. My reflection’s fogged out quickly thank fuck. I’m not in the mood to look myself right now.
I close my eyes and brace my palms against the tile. I should feel better than this, but I don’t. I feel cracked.
I’m walking around with every inch of softness she’s ever given me packed into my ribs, trying not to let it leak out.
The pressure builds in my throat, that knot of everything I won’t say. Sometimes I can’t tell if I’m falling in love or unraveling in it.
The water beats down like it’s trying to drown the noise in my head. I drag in a breath. Let it out slow.
My chest tightens the way it used to when I was ten, hiding Carter in the garage while Mom screamed at another boyfriend who wouldn’t leave fucking leave.
It’s easier to be blunt, to be cold. Easier to push people away than let them see the cracks. The truth is, those cracks are where the world got to me first. Our mom… she didn’t have it in her. Not then, not ever. Her boyfriends were the kind of men who left bruises that weren’t just on skin.
Carter and I learned early that if we wanted to survive, someone had to take it. Sometimes that meant me taking it. Sometimes that meant standing between them and him, bracing for whatever bullshit she couldn’t stop.
I remember the nights she sat in the corner, crying quietly while her latest “love” called me a piece of shit for stepping in. I learned to hold the anger. I learned to be still, to absorb all the physical, verbal, emotional punches and let them think I was nothing, while I figured out how to make sure Carter never felt like nothing.
That’s why when I feel weak or exposed, I get mad. It’s not rage for the sake of it, it’s a shield that kept me alive when nothing else could. Weakness is terrifying because it’s a reminder of nights when I couldn’t fix her, couldn’t fix the situation, couldn’t protect enough.
I see glimpses of it in Carter sometimes the hesitation, the worry that maybe he’s not enough and I want to fucking claw it out for him, but I can’t. I can only let the anger come first.
By seventeen, Carter and I had cut her out completely. No calls, no letters, no explanations. It wasn’t easy, but it was survival. No matter what I feel now I never look back, that life is behind us. But every time I let someone in, the old instinct rises. Protect. Stand tall. Absorb it all. Be unbroken.