Page 224 of Fractured Devotion
She doesn’t answer, but her eyes narrow, studying me, weighing every inch of truth in my face.
“But I stayed,” I say. “I stayed when it broke me. I stayed when it broke you. And I’m here now because I won’t let you disappear without knowing where we stand.”
Something flickers in her expression, small but sharp.
“We stand in ruin,” she says.
“We stand where we choose to,” I counter, my voice firm and unwavering.
Her breath hitches again, subtle but there.
I lean in closer, my voice dropping lower. “You can run, Celeste. You’re good at that. But you know as well as I do that running doesn’t erase what we are to each other. It doesn’t erase what we could still be.”
She exhales slowly, her shoulders tightening, her control beginning to fracture.
“You think I don’t know what this costs?” Her voice is sharp now, but it trembles at the edges. “You think I don’t know how this story ends?”
I reach across the table, my hand resting on hers, firm but gentle.
Her skin is cold against mine.
“I don’t care about endings,” I say, my voice soft but fierce. “I care about right now.”
She doesn’t pull away.
But she doesn’t lean in either.
She just lets me hold her there, suspended in the space we’ve both been too afraid to claim.
The world outside keeps spinning.
But inside this moment, it feels like we’ve stopped time.
Her walls are still up, but I can feel the cracks forming.
And I’m not leaving this table until I break through them.
Her hand stays under mine.
She doesn’t pull away.
I watch the war behind her eyes, the gentle panic of someone teetering on the edge of surrender.
I lower my voice even more, every word weighted. “Let me in.”
Her lips part, the faintest breath leaving her.
But she doesn’t speak.
I lean in, barely an inch between us now. “Let me in, Celeste. Stop pretending we don’t both feel this.”
Her fingers twitch under my palm. “What if it destroys us?” she finally asks, her voice so soft that it nearly disappears.
“Then we burn together,” I say without hesitation.
Her lashes lower as the smallest shudder runs through her.
“I’m tired of ghosts,” I murmur. “Tired of shadows. Tired of watching you run toward everything that hurts you just to escape something that could heal.”
