Page 83 of Freestyle
I swallow. “Because glass can cut, and you’ve been bleeding in silence since the day we met.”
Rowyn presses her lips together. She hates compliments, hates being seen, but I think she hates not being believed even more.
“I didn’t wantyou to see that part of me,” she admits, her voice almost ashamed. “The part that’s scared, that still checks every shadow for something I told myself was over.”
I reach for her hand. Not to hold it, just to touch. A promise. An anchor.
“I’ve seen all of you, Row,” I say. “The fighter. The runner. The one who still shakes in her sleep.”
I pause.
“And I stayed.”
That gets her. Her eyes flicker, wet and hot and furious.
Not with me.
Witheverything.
She doesn’t say anything else.
She doesn’t need to.
Her hand closes around mine like a lifeline she didn’t ask for, but maybe doesn’t want to let go of either.
Gray stirs awake next to her, stretching his arms over his head, then unconsciously reaches for Rowyn. He rubs her back, making soft circles, causing her to melt into his touch.
She doesn’t resist.
Doesn’t even flinch.
Just folds closer into the contact like her body’s been waiting for it, even in sleep.
His eyes are still heavy with sleep, his hair a tangled mess, but his hand moves with instinct. Gentle.Familiar. His fingers trace slow, absent circles between her shoulder blades like it’s a rhythm his body never forgot.
He blinks fully into consciousness then, like he’s just realized what, or rather who, he’s touching. But instead of pulling away he leans closer, pressing a soft kiss to the back of her shoulder through the cotton of my hoodie.
“Mm,” she murmurs.
Gray leans over, breath skimming her ear. “Nothing’s going to touch you again,” he says, low and certain. “Not while we’re breathing.”
Rowyn turns her head, barely enough to catch his eyes.
“They want to haunt you, Row? Let them. We’ll be the ghosts they regret summoning.”
Gray meets my eyes, something unspoken passing between us like the crackle before a storm.
Then softly, almost like a vow—
“We’ll burn the whole damn world before we let anyone take you from it.”
I watch from the foot of the bed, barely breathing. The air feels different now, softer maybe, or just thick with things none of us know how to name yet.
My chest tightens.
Not with jealousy.
With the kind of aching clarity that comes when you realize you’re not afraid of falling anymore.
