Page 118 of ICED
“You’re safe now,” I say. “You’re not alone anymore.”
She clings to me like she’s drowning.
“I still feel it,” she whispers. “Some days I look at the door and expect him to walk through it. The alarm faults triggered me again. I don’t want to be afraid anymore, Owen.”
“You won’t be,” I say. “Not with me here.”
It’s silent for a long time. Just her breath against my chest, the occasional honk of a car on the street below, the muted creak of the heating system.
Eventually, she lifts her head.
“Make me feel something else,” she says. “Please.”
I hesitate. “Maya,”
“Not because I need a distraction,” she says. “Because I trust you. Because I feel safe with you. Because I want this to be about us from now on, not what came before.”
I take her face in my hands. Her cheeks are wet. Her eyes full of emotion and fire and something close to devastation. I kiss her softly. Slowly.
“I’ve got you,” I whisper.
She kisses me back, trembling.
We move to our bedroom. She undresses slowly, carefully, as if shedding something more than fabric. I let her set the pace. Let her touch me first. Her fingers trail over the bruises on my ribs, the scabs on my knuckles.
“You fight for everyone else,” she says, voice shaking. “Let me be here for you now.”
I close my eyes as she presses her lips to my chest. My heart hammers under her mouth.
We make love like it’s a prayer, not the urgent rush we’ve had before. Like it’s the first time either of us has been truly seen and not turned away. She cries. So do I. We don’t hide it. We don’t need to.
When she’s beneath me, she keeps whispering my name like it’s the only word she knows. When she comes, she clings to me like she’s afraid I’ll disappear.
“I’m here,” I promise, again and again. “I’m not going anywhere.”
After, we lie tangled in the sheets. Her head on my chest. My hand in her hair. Her fingers tracing slow, steady shapes on my ribs.
“I love you,” she says quietly. “I think I have for a while. I was just too scared to believe I could have this.”
My throat is too tight to answer right away. But I kiss her hair and hold her tighter.
“I love you, Maya Dawson,” I say. “And I’m going to spend the rest of my life proving you’re safe now. With me. With us.”
She sighs, soft and warm against my skin.
Outside, the city hums. In here, we are quiet. Connected. Whole.
For the first time ever, I feel like I’m exactly where I’m meant to be.
I wake before the sun.
Maya’s curled against me, warm and soft, her hand still tangled in the hem of my T-shirt like she never wanted to let go. Her lashes twitch against her cheek. There’s a crease on her forehead even in sleep, like her mind hasn’t fully accepted it’s allowed to rest.
I stroke my thumb over her knuckles.
Last night comes back in pieces. Her words. Her trembling. The way she let herself be seen fully, painfully, bravely. And then how she touched me like I was something safe. How we moved together like we were building something new out of the wreckage.
She trusted me with her story and I’ll carry it like gold.
