Page 79 of Golden Ruin

“Speak for yourself.”

She goes silent and completely still. I can’t see her staring, but I feel her eyes on me.

My fist clenches as I live with what I just admitted, wishing I’d kept it in, but it’s out there. In the open for her to tear it apart like I suspect she’ll do.

“How can you not see it as a mistake?” she asks. “We tried this before, Sterling. And maybe you don’t remember how that went, but we crashed and burned. Hard.”

I feel the weight of that single word right in the center of my chest. Partly because I know she’s trying to convince me that the bad parts are all there was to us, but I know she doesn’t believe that. I saw right through her tonight.

“Look, I just… don’t want to fuck things up more than they already are,” she sighs. “We can’t let one mistake blow up our whole lives.”

“There goes that word again.”

“Because that’s what it was!”

She stands, and her voice echoes through the room when she shouts, but I’m not rattled by it. I see what she’s trying to do, what she’s trying to prove. She’s got a wall a mile thick around her heart, and she hates that I was able to get past it once, hates that I still know how to break through.

That’s why I see her shoulders heaving through the dark.

I affect her.

Almost as much as she affects me.

“And you’re forgetting the most important part,” she says. “The end result of all this is us confusing Jax. I know what it feels like to hope for a family that’s never going to be, and I won’t do that to him.”

She swipes another tear away, and the wound her father left on her soul is never too far out of sight. That pain’s been her North Star for years, tainting her thoughts, controlling all her decisions, telling her when to fight or flee. And it’s there now, telling her I’m not safe and can’t be trusted again.

My chest rises and falls as I watch her through the darkness, fighting not to say things I know she wouldn’t want me to, things that would only make her push me further away. But I feel every single one of them.

“All I’m saying is… we can’t let our past together get in the way of life moving forward,” she says calmly this time. “It’s not healthy.”

She’s still standing right in front of me, but emotionally, I feel her trying to pull away.

“Our past isn’t in the way. You’re not in the way,” I say with a quick breath. “You’re right where I want you to be.”

I step closer, and she doesn’t move, doesn’t stop me when my fingers slip beneath her hair, and I kiss her, tasting the saltiness of the tears on her lips.

The fabric of her hoodie warms in my fingers when I grip the back of it, pulling her closer. She breathes deep as she loses herself with me, finally letting herself touch me back, pressing her hands to my chest.

I want this. It scares the absolute shit out of me, but I want this. Badly. More than I’ve ever admitted to myself or out loud. Because she’s more than the realest love I’ve ever experienced in my life. She’s… home.

“No.”

That word feels like a bucket of cold water being dumped over me, and where her hands were on my chest, she’s now using them as leverage, an opportunity to push me away.

“Please,” she says softly. “Please don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

Her words hang in the air, like a third body standing in the room, pressing its way between us.

“Lex–”

“Sterling, please just… go.” Her voice shakes, and I know the tears are back when she sniffles again.

Fighting for what I want is woven into my DNA, but it doesn’t feel right now. Maybe because her emotions are so raw, and her heart’s so exposed. I wouldn’t want to do more damage than I already have.

So, I take a step toward the door, even though leaving is the last thing I want to do tonight. But I do it. For her.

The second I’m in the hallway, her door latches softly behind me, and I hear her settle against it. I imagine her tears flowing more freely now, her emotions crashing down on her, but I wonder if that’s because she feels it.