Page 97 of Our Secrets and Scars

How I wish I could take those words back now.

It feels like a decade passes as we stand and stare at each other. The string of lights hanging above the walkway flicker, casting a yellowish glow over the both of us and illuminating the hot breaths we both exhale into the space between us.

He looks almost menacing in the moonlight, wrapped in a thick black coat with the hood up to protect him from the cold. But just as it’s always been with him, I feel nothing but safe in his presence.

“You’re here.” I breathe.

“Where else would I be?” He smiles sadly.

I can see on his face how much he wants to reach for me and the restraint it’s taking to hold himself back. He’s cautious, hesitant, maybe even a little frightened. I hate how the once confident alpha-type man who bossed me about and dominated me in all aspects now stands shorter, anxious, and subdued.

“I thought you were gone.” I rush to him before I can stop myself. “I thought I was too late and that you’d left. I thought that you’d given up and we were truly over. I thought… I-I thought—”

“Shh, little one.” His hand reaches out to cup my face as his thumb brushes away a tear I didn’t even realize had fallen. “When it turned seven and you weren’t here, I went to the bathroom, but I wasn’t going to leave. I’d have waited here for you all night if you hadn’t shown.Fuck, Kinsley, it kills me when you cry.”

“I’m sorry,” I sob, burying my head in his chest. “I’m so sorry.”

“Why the hell areyousorry?” he asks in astonishment.

“For taking so long to come to you, for taking until now to realize that nothing is worth losing you.”

“Stop that,” he tells me, his voice firm and strict. And though I’m crying and my emotions are overwhelming, a tiny smile tugs at the corner of my lips at the re-emergence of his dominant side. “You have nothing to apologize for, you hear me? It’s me who should be kneeling at your feet right now begging for forgiveness. I fucked up, Kinz. God, I fucked up so bad.”

I shake my head to quiet him.

“No, you gotta let me say this,” he says. “I haven’t slept for days, I haven’t eaten, haven’t been able to do anything but relive the moment I broke your heart over and over again. And let me tell you, little one, I’ve never known a pain like what I felt when I realized how truly and utterly I’ve failed you. There’s no excuse for it. There’s no reason in the world good enough to have hurt you the way that I did.”

He sucks in a deep breath, his hands moving to hold the tops of my arms steady so he can look me in the eye as he speaks. And though it’s too intense to keep his gaze as he pours out his heart to me, I don’t look away. I wouldn’t be able to anyway, even if I tried.

“I thought that having you even temporarily would be worth whatever the fallout was after the secrets came out. But I was wrong. If I could go back in time and tell you who I was in that very first letter I sent you all those years ago, then I would. Even if it meant I never heard from you again. Even if it meant the last few months we’ve spent together never happened, if I’d never got to touch you or kiss you or learn every fucking beautiful detail of the scars you bear. I’d give it all up if it meant I could take back the pain I brought you with my deception.”

His head dips, his cheeks pink from the cold but also with shame. I reach up to cup his face, telling him silently that it’s okay.

“It’s killing me that I hurt you. And every day, no, every fucking second, I hate myself more for it. Because you are everything. The light that guides me, the air I breathe, the blood that runs through my veins. There isn’t a single part of my existence that you haven’t touched in some way, that you haven’t altered or obliterated for all other women.”

His eyes scrunch shut as he continues, and I have no choice but to listen. I’m too stunned to speak anyway.

“And I ruined it. I dimmed your light, and I poisoned your air with my secrets, when all you have ever deserved is to be loved with the purity and honesty that you give the rest of the world, even those who aren’t worthy of it. Fuck, Kinz, I’d do anything to be worthy of you. I’d even shatter my own heart and love you in silence from afar if that’s what it took. If being without you is what it takes to be deserving of your heart, then I’ll force myself to do it. I’d die in darkness if it meant you could live every day in the sunshine.”

His eyes open then, clearer and filled with a renewed sense of purpose. “The truth is, I fell in love with you when I was a boy trapped inside a cell with bars on the windows. And I’ve loved you every day since. It may have taken me until now to say it, but it’s true. I love you, Kinsley Violet Garcia. You have my heart irrevocably, unconditionally, and eternally, forever and always. And though you may not trust me when I tell you, but that is the very last secret I’ve kept from you.”

“Holden.”

His name is a choked whisper that gets lost in the sobs wracking through me.And though I’m weeping, it’s with nothing but happiness and relief. To be touching him again and feeling his heartbeat against my cheek as I rest my head against his chest, to be breathing in the comfort of his familiar smell, and to be hearing him finally tell me those three words that I’ve dreamed of for so long.

Because my heart has belonged to him since I was old enough to understand what love is. So, I can’t blame him for not telling me he loves me sooner because it’s a secret I’ve been keeping as well.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Then don’t say anything,” he says, his voice steady and strong despite the incredible weight of the moment.

“But I want to.” I raise my head to look into his silver irises, which are slowly starting to recover their iridescent shine. “I love you too, Holden Fletcher. Always have, always will.”

“Yeah?” His lip trembles very slightly, and I swear I see the promise of a tear in the corner of his eye.

“Yeah.” And I can’t help it, I laugh. “Just no more secrets, okay?”

He hauls me into his arms, lifting me off the ground with barely any effort at all.

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