Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 113699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 568(@200wpm)___ 455(@250wpm)___ 379(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 568(@200wpm)___ 455(@250wpm)___ 379(@300wpm)
His answering smile could outshine the sun. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I reach across the table, my bare hand finding his. The contact sends electricity through my veins, but not panic. Not fear. Just … connection. “But Lee?”
“Hmm?” He stares at our joined hands like they’re something miraculous.
“I don’t want to start completely over.” My fingers lace with his. “I want to remember how far we’ve come. How much we’ve grown. How real everything still is between us.” His thumb traces patterns on my palm, and for once, I don’t need to count them to feel safe.
“I love you.” Lee’s words come out steady, certain, clear as the morning light streaming through the windows. “Not because you taught me patterns could be beautiful. Not because you saw through every mask I wore. Not even because you were brave enough to walk away when I needed to heal.” My heart stutters in my chest, but I don’t pull my hand away. Don’t retreat behind careful walls. Don’t need to count breaths to stay present at this moment. “I love you because you’re you. Because you count tiles when anxious but can sit here now with bare hands touching mine. Because you wear silk gloves to fancy parties but learned to exist without them when you’re ready. Because you’re the strongest person I’ve ever known, even when you think you aren’t.”
Tears blur my vision, but they’re different from the ones I used to shed when everything ended three months ago.
“I love you, too,” I whisper, “not because you got sober or found a job or proved anything to anyone. But because you’re you. You’re finding out who you want to be.”
His hand tightens on mine, and I see tears in his eyes, too. Storm-gray swimming with emotion that needs no measuring, no counting, no careful control.
“We’re quite a pair, aren’t we?” His voice is rough with feeling. “The OCD girl who learned to live without gloves and the alcoholic heir who learned to live without bourbon. Both of us were so afraid of not fitting into our own worlds that we almost missed being real.”
“But we didn’t miss it,” I say, understanding blooming like a slow and steady dawn. “We just … needed time. Needed growth. We needed to learn how to love ourselves before we could love each other properly.”
“Yeah.” He lifts our joined hands, pressing a kiss to my bare knuckles. The contact sends shivers down my spine, but not from fear. Never from fear, not with him. Not anymore. “So what do you say, Salem? Ready to be real with me? No arrangements, no pretense, no careful performances. Just us, with all our patterns and chaos and perfectly imperfect pieces?”
I look at our hands, at his clear eyes, at everything possible stretching before us like an uncounted future.
“Yes,” I say simply, meaning it more than anything I’ve ever said. “Just us. Real us. Whatever that means.”
epilogue
Three Months Later
-Salem
The setting sun casts long shadows across The Mill’s front lawn as I park my car, wondering what Lee has planned. Three months of real dating, of sober kisses, of learning each other’s patterns in new ways, and he still finds a way to surprise me. Still makes my heart race with simple texts like: Meet me at The Mill. 7 p.m. Trust me.
I spot the note immediately, weighed down by a silk blindfold on the front steps. The paper is a crumpled sticky note, but the handwriting is unmistakably Lee’s.
Put it on. Come inside. Let me lead you somewhere special.
P.S. Everything’s clean. Counted three times. Just for you.
P.P.S. I love you.
My fingers trace the silk blindfold—burgundy, like my old gloves, like the dress from that night on the cliffs, like everything significant in our story. The soft material is expensive and carefully chosen like everything Lee does for me now.
I should feel nervous about this. Should need something to calm me before this. But three more months of real love, of genuine trust, of learning each other’s needs have changed things. Changed us.
The blindfold slides over my eyes easily, silk cool against my skin. I’ve come so far from the girl who needed three pairs of gloves just to feel safe. The girl who counted ceiling tiles before entering rooms. The girl who met a chaos-bringing boy in a pantry and thought she could never be suitable for anyone.
Now I stand here, voluntarily blindfolded, trusting Lee completely. Because he’s earned that trust. Because he’s proven worthy of it. Because he understands my patterns aren’t prison cells anymore, just like I understand his chaos isn’t destruction anymore.
My hand finds the door handle, and I smile at the familiar feel of recently sanitized metal. Of course he cleaned everything. Of course he counted three times. Of course he made sure I would feel safe even in darkness.