Page 83 of Into the Light

“Fuck yeah. After you told me you did and felt better after, why not? I have a lot of shit to work through. Obviously, I cannot tell her everything, but it feels nice to have a time set aside to talk about all of this.”

“And it helped with your . . . panic attacks?” I asked as the warm water kept trickling down my back and he worked meticulously to wash me with the little bar of soap.

“Yeah, I think I just realized that you are your own person, you know?”

“No, I don’t,” I answered honestly.

He looked down, washing me but not looking up, as it seemed like he was trying to come up with the right words.

“I just always assumed it was Ash and Ember. Without Ash here, you were still Ash and Ember in my mind, and I needed to separate the two of you. Like you could exist with him, but you also weren’t with him anymore,” he explained, pausing. “It’s selfish of me, but I don’t know if there was anyone else other than you. I sacrificed for him to protect him, but in my heart, I watched the one person I felt an immediate connection with fall for my brother, and it was so damn hard.”

“Rain,” I offered empathetically, trying to ease his inner turmoil.

He pushed my hand away and stepped back in the shower. Both of us stood under the water as I blinked rapidly. “It’s okay, Ember,” he continued. “I think that’s what I needed to know. It’s okay that you were his. I’m glad he got to know what it felt like to love you.”

His voice choked up as he continued, “Because loving you has been the best thing to ever happen to me. If he even felt a fraction of what I feel right now, he’s an incredibly lucky man. Loving you has been the greatest honor of my life.”

I knew he was crying now, even through the droplets of water from the shower. “Rain, I think I—”

He brought his fingers to my lips again, stopping me from speaking. “No,” he said silently, his voice raspy, and he washed the soap off me in silence.

“Turn around,” he whispered, and I obliged, his hands trailing down my body.

Once he finished, he turned off the water, handed me a towel, and gave me one of his oversized t-shirts. He helped me put it on, guiding one arm through, then my neck, and the other arm.

It was a slow, familiar routine we’d established over the last month of being together. “I don’t want anyone else,” I whispered, tears flowing freely. “Please, be mine,” I pleaded as I turned toward him.

I was in his cabin, standing there in only his T-shirt. He was toweling off his hair lazily while putting on my favorite pair of gray sweats, which for some inexplicable reason, made him look incredibly attractive.

We walked out of the tiny bathroom and headed toward the bed in the center of the room. “Get in, mi pareja,” he said, lifting the covers after he’d jumped onto the bed. I slid in next to him as he wrapped me up into a warm cocoon.

After a few minutes of silence, with only the sounds of the forest filling the cabin, I shifted so I was facing him. “Rain?” I asked for the third time today.

“Mmm?” he murmured. His eyes heavy with sleep.

“I love you,” I blurted, not wanting him to stop me from saying it. I knew it wasn’t technically the first time I’d confessed that I was in love with him because I had said it in class, but I’d never said it to his face.

“Em—” This time, it was my turn to stop him with my finger.

“I love you, Rain. I know you weren’t always there for me, but you were. You were always there in your own way before we learned to love ourselves. When I was with Ash, our love felt so frantic and consuming.” He gulped.

“I loved it because I needed it to learn that life wasn’t about living in this closed-off world that I had been forced into my entire life.” I smiled, thinking of falling in love with Ash and the beautiful memories we shared. “I loved him so much, Rain. But I also knew that falling in love with you would be different, which is maybe why I kept the door shut for so long. Your love scared me because it didn’t consume me in the same way.”

“I’m sorry—”

“No,” I interrupted him. “I’m not saying that to upset you. Quite the contrary. That all-or-nothing type of love isn’t sustainable for a long period of time. I can’t tell you that I wouldn’t be with him right now, but I also know that being with you feels safe, protective, supportive. You aren’t the villain in this story; you’re my hero, my savior. You brought me back from the dead.”

“I’d crawl from hell to come back to you,” he whispered.

“But you’d never be there. You’d be in heaven playing with Ash and Sol,” I said, my chest constricting at the thought of them. “Loving you is like being wrapped in one of your hugs. It’s warm, safe, and comforting. It gives me a steady surface when I still feel wobbly on my knees.”

“Ember?” I looked up through blurred vision.

“Yeah?”

“I love you, too.”

Our lips met in a frenzied kiss. As I sank deeper into Rain’s arms, I realized that everything would be okay.

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