Page 176 of A Smile Full of Lies
“You’re the reason I made it through losing my whole family,” he said. “You’re the reason I survived. You pulled the truth from the dark and made the world listen. And now? Now I’m done waiting. I’m done hiding. I’m done surviving.”
He lifted my hand and pressed a kiss to my knuckles.
“I want tolivewith you. In this house. In this life. In every way a man can live with the woman he loves. You’re not just my partner, baby. You’re my purpose.”
I was sobbing before I could even speak, but I tried anyway.
“Philip Henry Knox,” I said, my voice cracking with every word. “You were my neighbor before you were anything else. You were the boy who looked at me like I mattered when the wholeworld passed me by. You saw things I tried to hide. And when everything fell apart, you didn’t flinch. You stayed.”
I cupped his cheek, tears slipping down both of our faces.
“You love me the way I didn’t know I was allowed to be loved. Fierce. Wild. Unapologetically. You didn’t just survive hell — you brought me through it with you. And I will spend the rest of my life holding you, healing with you, and proving you were never too much for anyone. Especially not for me.”
He kissed me before I could even catch my breath.
Slow. Soft. Devastating.
When we pulled apart, Alyssa stepped forward and signed the marriage license. Hale followed. And just like that, we were married in the house where his family died. In the house we’d rebuilt with blood and fire and something fierce enough to outlast the wreckage. In the house that belonged tousnow.
Alyssa hugged me hard at the door, then turned to Knox and whispered something in his ear that made his jaw tense, and his eyes soften.
Hale didn’t say much. He just nodded at both of us and said, “You did good.”
Then they drove away without a backward glance. The house was quiet after they left. Not empty, never empty. Not anymore. Butquietin a way it hadn’t been since the moment I stepped foot inside it the first time.
And suddenly, we were alone. Husband and wife.
Knox turned to me in the foyer, his hand finding my waist.
“You okay?” he asked.
I nodded, breath catching.
“More than okay.”
He smiled, that rare, quiet smile that was only mine.
“Good.”
Then he kissed me.
Slow. Sure. Like he had all the time in the world. Like I was already his, but he was claiming me again anyway.
When we pulled apart, he didn’t say anything. Just took my hand and started walking. Room by room. Hall by hall. It felt like a tour through memories that didn’t belong to me. Not all of them. But I walked with him anyway.
We didn’t speak. It wasn’t necessary.
He showed me the formal dining room, still intact. The library his mother had loved more than any other room in the house. The back sunroom his sister used to sneak into to smoke, and sketch, and dream.
We stood in the kitchen where he once made late-night grilled cheeses for Ava. In the hallway where he used to run when he was small. And when we reached the grand staircase, I felt the air shift.
He stopped, looked over at me, and for the first time, he hesitated.
“Do you want me to go first?” I asked softly.
His jaw clenched.
“No. I want to take you up with me.”
