Page 88 of The Secrets We Built Together

The words slipped out before I could stop them, too close to the truth for comfort. Xander's eyes sharpened, but before he could respond, I was already moving toward Amelia.

"Anyway, Toby needs a walk."

"And Toby would be?"

I smiled, miming locking my lips. "Can't tell you all my secrets, Farrington."

Not all of them, anyway. Just the most important ones.

"I'm intrigued and slightly terrified," he joked.

"Come on, strawberry." I picked Amelia out of her high chair and started toward the bedroom to get her ready to go outside. "We've got some evil plots to start hatching while no one is watching."

I heard Xander's laugh as I walked into the bedroom and couldn't help but smile. This wasn't the life I'd seen for myself, but I loved every little piece of it. Even the complicated, messy parts. Even the parts where I'd confessed my love to someone who might not be ready to hear it.

I started packing a bag with supplies, and at the last minute, I shoved my sketchbook and my pencil wrap in as well without trying to make it into a big deal in my head. Maybe if I couldn't find the words to talk about my confession, I could at least try to capture what this strange in-between feeling looked like on paper.

The morning was perfect. Spring had finally pushed out the last dregs of winter, and I walked along the dirt track that led away from the ranch, reveling in the gentle breeze against my face and the sun warming my shoulders. Amelia was strapped to my chest in the baby carrier we'd bought yesterday, looking around with wide, curious eyes doing the cute little babble of almost words that she'd started doing recently.

"You know what, strawberry?" I said to her as we walked. "I might have gone and made things even more complicated than they were to start with. Can you believe that’s even possible? I told Xander something I probably shouldn't have, and now I don't know how to take it back. Or if I even want to take it back."

She didn’t respond, of course she didn’t, but at least there wasn’t any judgment in her eyes, and she wasn’t pushing me tojust talk about itlike that was an easy thing to do.

Who knew babies were such good listeners?

All around us, nature was putting on a show. Wildflowers had erupted in patches of vibrant purple and yellow, painting the meadows in watercolor splashes. Birds called to each other from newly-leafed trees, their songs carrying on the crisp morning air that still held the last hint of winter's chill. The muddy patches along the trail were beginning to dry, leaving behind only the fresh, earthy scent that promised warmer days ahead.

I pointed out a red-winged blackbird to Amelia as it flashed past us. "See that, strawberry? By the time you're walking, this whole place will be alive with creatures for you to chase. And maybe by then, I'll have figured out how to be brave enough to talk about feelings like a grown-up."

I found a spot under a sprawling oak tree at the edge of one of Booker's fields. The branches cast dappled shadows on the ground, and wildflowers dotted the grass around us. I spread out the blanket I'd packed and carefully settled Amelia with a teething ring and some colorful blocks.

She grabbed a yellow block and stared at it curiously as she babbled away like she was having a full conversation with it, and I couldn't help but smile. How had this tiny person become the center of my world so quickly?

"You know, Amelia, I never thought I'd be good at this," I told her, watching as she grabbed at a stuffed rabbit I'd placed on the blanket. "In fact, I was sure I'd be terrible. And maybe I'm terrible at the relationship part too. Maybe I shouldn't have told him I loved him before I was sure he felt the same way."

She blew a spit bubble in response, which I took as either encouragement or gentle judgment.

"Delaney thinks I should just bring it up again. Ask him what he's thinking. But what if what he's thinking is that I'm moving too fast? What if I scared him off?"

I reached for my sketchbook, flipping it open to a fresh page. My pencil hovered over the paper, and for a second, the familiar anxiety crept in. But today it was mixed with something else—the weight of my confession, the uncertainty of where Xander and I stood.

Without thinking, I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, a nervous gesture I'd had since childhood. My fingers trembled slightly, not just from artistic anxiety but from the emotional turmoil that had been churning inside me for days.

But then Amelia laughed—a bright, bubbly sound that seemed to burst out of her like sunshine—and I found my hand moving without conscious thought.

The first stroke was tentative. The second, more sure. By the third, I'd forgotten to be afraid.

I sketched the scene around us, but my mind kept drifting to that night. The way Xander had held me when I was exhausted and overwhelmed. The way those three words had slipped out like they'd been waiting their whole lives to be spoken. The way he'd gone very still afterward, and I'd wondered if he'd heard me or if I'd just imagined saying them out loud.

I drew the tree above us, with its ancient trunk and sprawling branches. I drew the wildflowers dancing in the breeze and the distant fence line that marked the edge of the ranch. But my pencil kept returning to the figures I'd sketched in the center—Amelia and me, two people trying to figure out where they belonged.

And then, without letting myself overthink it, I added a third figure. Xander, standing slightly apart from us, his expression uncertain. In the sketch, there was space between us—not thecomfortable closeness we'd had before, but the careful distance that had appeared since my confession.

I stared at the drawing, my heart pounding. It wasn't what I'd intended to create, but it captured exactly how I'd been feeling. Like we were all connected but somehow separated by the weight of unspoken words.

"What do you think, little one?" I asked Amelia, who had fallen asleep, her tiny chest rising and falling with each breath. "Too honest?"

She didn't answer, of course. But as I looked at the sketch, something settled inside me. Maybe drawing it out was the first step toward finding the courage to talk about it.

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