Page 31 of Breaking Through

His thumb stroked my jaw, encouraging.

"Your hands." I'd dragged those words from somewhere deep inside. "How careful they are when they t… touch me."

"One more." His voice was almost a whisper.

I swallowed hard. "The way you look at damaged things. Like they're worth saving."

"They are." He gripped the collar of my shirt and pressed his lips to the worst scar, the one that hooked over my collarbone. "You are."

Something new broke loose in my chest. It wasn't the dam burst of emotion from before. It was something deeper and colder than that. Something that had been frozen since that night in Chicago.

I buried my face in his neck, breathing in coffee and sandalwood and hope. His arms wrapped around me, strong despite being slender. They anchored me.

"I've got you." His voice hummed against my skin. "I've got you."

For the first time since the fire, I let myself believe it. Let myself lean on someone else's strength.

Finally, my breathing steadied.

"I should..." I pulled back reluctantly, caught between need and duty. "The shelter assessment."

"Will keep. Some things matter more."

I touched his face, wondering at the miracle of having him in my cabin where no one else ever ventured, not even Tom and Maya. His mere presence began to make broken things feel whole.

"I'm not good at this." The words were all sandpapery and still halfway down my throat. "Whatever this is becoming."

"Good thing I'm an expert in works in progress." He smiled. "And I've got time."

But the memorial service date flashed in my mind like warning lights. Three weeks. Three weeks until I had to face everything I'd run from. Every life I couldn't save. Every reason I didn't deserve this chance.

Holden read it in my face.

"Hey." He caught my hand. "One step at a time. We'll figure it out."

We. Such a simple word, but it was the massive wrecking ball tearing down three years of walls.

I gazed at him, standing in my cabin's morning light with that ridiculous vest still crooked. I shivered, thinking about how vulnerable I'd suddenly become.

"Yeah." My voice was rough, but my hands had stopped shaking. "We will."

Chapter eleven

Holden

"You can't fix everyone, Match."

Trust Grandpa to find me at midnight, hunched over Gran's old journals in her studio, searching for answers like she'd hidden them between the lines of her careful notes. I looked up from a page about art therapy and healing, defensiveness roiling up inside me.

"I wasn't trying to—" The lie died in my throat. "Okay, maybe I was."

"Mmhmm." He settled into the doorway, oxygen tube snaking behind him. "Just like you weren't humming love songs all evening while reorganizing my medications by color instead of time."

"They're easier to identify that way." My cheeks heated up. "And I wasn't humming."

"'Moon River' has never been murdered quite so thoroughly. That was your mother's favorite, and your father butchered it at their wedding if I recall."

"I don't even know the words to 'Moon River.'"

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