Page 101 of Second Sin

She’s quiet.

“Why?” she asks, soft.

"Because I deserve it." I squeeze the back of my neck, trying to ease the pressure building.

A pause.

She stares at me for a second, and I see the way her throat moves when she swallows. The way she doesn’t look away.

“That’s not true,” she says, and there’s no hesitation in her voice.

“Yeah,” I say, voice low. Bitter. “It is.”

“No, it’s not.”

She steps in, just a little. Still not touching. Still holding the line, even though I know she wants to cross it.

“No matter what you’ve done,” she says, “it doesn’t change who you are now. And that man…”

Her eyes don’t leave mine.

“That man shows up when it’s hard. He owns his shit, even when it hurts. He fights for people he cares about.”

She pauses, and a soft smile tugs at the corner of her mouth.

“And yeah, he’s a little stubborn. Grumpy as hell. Has no idea how to take a compliment without acting like it physically hurts.”

I huff a breath. Almost a laugh.

“And sometimes,” she adds, a spark in her eye, “he buys five pounds of shallots because he thinks it’ll make him look fancy.”

That actually pulls a sound from me. A quiet, cracked laugh.

But her face is still soft. Steady.

And I don’t know how to stand here and hear her say those things andnotfall.

So I do the only thing I can.

I say what I meant to say before I talked myself out of it.

“God, I love you.”

She blinks. Stares like she misheard me.

"I know I’m a fucking mess. But I need you to hear it. Because it’s true. I love you."

She opens her mouth?—

But doesn’t get a chance to speak.

Because the microphone crackles. And a voice—shaky, young—rips through the air.

"This event is a joke," the boy says. "If Sebastian Wilde’s allowed to speak about mental health."

The room stills.

Every head turns.

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