Page 150 of Silent Damage

Gabe bawls into my chest, muttering terrible things. “It’s okay if you want to leave—”

A cold chill rushes down my back. “Never.”

“You don’t have to stay—”

“I’m staying,” I state with conviction.

He shakes his head. “You’re just saying that because—”

“Gabe, I’m in love with you.”

He gasps. I squeeze him tighter, and Gabe stops crying.

“What?” he finally asks, still wrapped in my embrace.

I run my fingers through his wavy, dark hair as I let my words settle over me.

They do.

And it feels so right.

“I’m in love with you, Gabe,” I say with zero hesitation. “I love you so much. You’re everything to me. I will never leave you again. Ever.”

Gabe looks up at me, the tears still falling down his cheeks. “Please don’t say that if you’re just trying to make me feel better.”

“It’s the truth.”

Gabe’s eyes narrow, studying my face like he’s trying to find a lie, but he won’t.

“Yeah?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I whisper.

Then it appears. The thing I’ve wanted to see since we walked into the forest together.

He smiles.

“I love you, too,” he says.

“Yeah?”

Gabe falls apart again as he says, “So much. I love you so much, Jason.”

The sob rips out of my throat before I can stop it, and I squeak out the dumbest thing I’ve ever said. “Same, dude.”

Gabe barks out a laugh while bawling his eyes out, and so do I.

We both sit there, on a damn log, laughing through the tears, which feels so typical for us. We’re still laughing as we lean in and kiss, but then it shifts.

Because the kiss?

I don’t know why, but it feels like we’re kissing for the first time.

It feels so big—overwhelming. A lifetime of pain in my heart crumbles, and in its place is a love so big and strong that I feel like I might burst.

We kiss, feeling connected in a way we hadn’t before. Or maybe we did, but we lost it in the bullshit.

And now that it's back, it feels so good.