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“I love you,” she whispered.

He began to shudder, to shake, gripping her hips as she found her release, and he found his.

“I love you,” she said.

He held her against him, breathing hard, holding on to the moment for all that he could. For all that it was worth.

She loved him, even knowing that about him.

She loved him.

And she still wanted him.

And he…

He knew what love was. Because it had always been her. It had been love in a hundred different shapes, but it was love.

At every trial, every test, every shift, it remained. It was who they were. Who they had ever been.

He had loved her as a protector. And now he loved her as a man. As a husband. The mother of his child.

As everything.

“I love you, Esme.”

She lifted her head and looked down at him, her eyes filling with tears. “You do?”

“I have. All this time. Though the way that I love you has changed. I would not have called it that all this time, because I didn’t quite know what the words meant. It was only you saying them to me that made it clear. Because no one has ever said it to me before.”

“No one?”

“No.”

“The only person I ever remember saying it is my brother. We should’ve told you that we loved you. All along.”

“I don’t think I could’ve accepted it. I felt extremely unlovable for most of my life. Because I had been made to feel like an object. It felt like my duty to protect you, to keep you safe from everything that I knew was out there. You see, that’s part of why I couldn’t tell you. There was something about you that was so undamaged in spite of everything, and I didn’t want you to know all of the things that could happen. Because there is… There isn’t much that hasn’t happened to me. Violence of all kinds. Betrayal of all kinds.”

“I know. And I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry that it happened to you. But your job in life is not to protect me anymore. It’s been a gift to have you as a shield. But that only goes one way. You wrapped yourself around me all this time, but there needs to be room for me to hold you back. To protect you back. To love you back. I’m strong enough to handle all of this.”

“I think…there are going to be times when being a father pushes a lot of painful things to the surface.”

“Of course. I can completely understand that.”

“I don’t want to cause any more pain in your life.”

“You’ve given me so much more than pain. I want to be your partner. I’m here for all of it. Because that’s us, isn’t it? You stitched me back together, you idiot man. Let me stitch you back together. It doesn’t have to be fifty-fifty all the time. I can give a hundred when you can’t. I promise you that.”

“I’m not sure I know how to be loved.”

It was such a sad, strange truth to admit. He wanted this so badly, and yet so many moments in his life made him feel like he couldn’t have it.

“Well, I know how to love you. I’ve known my whole life. And honestly, you know how to love me. Whether we ever said it or not, it was real. Real between us. It always has been.”

He didn’t have a guarantee. He wouldn’t be able to see the future and guarantee that they wouldn’t hit any bumps in the road.

They would, of course. Because life for them had never been anything but bumpy. But one thing was true. They had been navigating it together all this time. When he had made the decision to move away from her, to try and protect her from him, it hadn’t worked. They had been drawn back together like magnets. It had been something like fate, and fate was something he had never really believed in. But if it existed, then for him it was Esme Brown.

It was foolish to try to turn away from it. And so he was done with that. He was going to turn to her. And he was going to trust her to walk through this with him.