Page 129 of The Misfit

Now, he looks at me like he sees all of me—torn patterns and healing pieces alike.

Now, everything feels possible in a way it never has before.

And I find myself holding my breath, waiting to hear what this new Lee, this steady Lee, this healing Lee has to say.

Lee takes a sip of what I realize is just plain black coffee. His movements are measured and deliberate like he’s learned his own kind of patterns. Like he’s found his own way to make sense of the world.

“You look good,” I say, because someone needs to break this charged silence, and because it’s true. The shadows under his eyes are gone, replaced by a kind of peace I’ve never seen in him before. His hands are steady as he sets down his cup, no tremors, no desperate need to reach for liquid courage.

“I feel good,” he says, and his voice carries a certainty that makes my heart stutter. “Clear. Present. Real, maybe for the first time since … shit, I don’t know. A long time ago.”

I wonder what kind of healing he’s done in these three months, what kind of peace he’s found while I was learning to exist without gloves.

“I have a job,” he continues, his eyes never leaving mine. “At a tech startup. Doing cybersecurity, if you can believe it. Turns out all those years of hacking my family’s accounts taught me some marketable skills. Well, that and the degree I somehow earned between keg stands.”

I can’t help but smile at that—at how he’s turned rebellion into legitimate work, chaos into order, destruction into creation. “Psh, you’re too much of a gentleman to do a keg stand. It’s beer funnels or nothing for you. But, joking aside, I can believe it. You’ve always been smarter than you let people see.”

“Yeah, well.” He runs a hand through his hair, a gesture so familiar it makes my chest ache. “Turns out I’m good at more than just drinking and fighting. Who knew?”

“I knew,” I say softly, and his eyes snap to mine. “I always saw more than the chaos you showed everyone else.”

Something shifts in his expression—vulnerability, maybe, or hope. “You did, didn’t you? Saw through every mask, every performance, every carefully constructed wall. Just like I saw through your gloves and counting and patterns.”

The truth of that settles between us, heavy with meaning and possibility. Because he did see through my barriers, just as I saw through his. We recognized each other’s destroyed pieces from the start, even if we weren’t ready to admit it then.

“NA meetings help,” he says after a moment. “Three times a week.” His lips quirk slightly. “I picked that number on purpose, you know. Because it was yours. Because even when I was trying to get better forme, I was thinking ofyou.”

The admission hangs in the air between us, more intimate than any touch, more real than any performance we ever gave. Because this is Lee without masks, without bourbon, without carefully constructed charm.

This is just … Lee.

Real and present and healing.

Just like I’m just Salem now.

Real and present and healing.

And somehow, that feels more powerful than any pattern or protection we ever created before.

“I did it for me,” Lee says, tracing the rim of his coffee cup like he used to trace patterns in spilled bourbon. “The sobriety, the therapy, the meetings. Had to do it for me, or it wouldn’t stick. But …” He looks up, meeting my eyes with an intensity that steals my breath. “You were there, in every choice. Every moment I wanted to drink. In every pattern I created to stay sane.”

I want to reach for him, to bridge this careful space between us. My bare hands itch to touch, to confirm he’s real, to make sure this isn’t another performance. But I wait, letting him find his words, allowing this moment to unfold in its own time.

“The first month was hell,” he continues, his voice steady despite the weight of confession. “Kept thinking about Promised Land, about Mother’s disappointment, about every time someone tried to fix me. But my therapist—” He smiles slightly. “The one you recommended, actually. She helped me see I was never damaged to begin with. Just different. Like you.”

“Different,” I echo, the word feeling right in a way that “broken” never did. “Not wrong, just …”

“Just ourselves,” he finishes. “With our patterns and chaos and measured spaces. With our counting and our needs and our own ways of making sense of the world.”

His hand rests on the table between us, not reaching, not demanding, just … present.

“I work until three,” he continues, watching me with curiosity. “But I was thinking… Maybe one of these days, we could go to dinner? If you want? Not as a performance, not as an arrangement, not as anything except us. Real us. And we can decide whatever that means when the time comes.”

The invitation hangs between us, weighted with everything we’ve been through, everything we could be, everything that feels possible now that we’re both healing in our own ways.

“Us,” I repeat softly, testing how the word feels on my tongue. Not torn pieces trying to fix each other. Not careful patterns trying to contain chaos. Just … us.

And somehow that’s the most terrifying and wonderful possibility of all.

---