Page 53 of Meet Me In The Dark (Skeptically In Love #3)

Julian

My shoes pound the pavement, rhythm steady and breath even, until my chest tightens as if someone has reached inside and twisted my lungs.

My fingers tingle, my hands go numb, and a strange pressure builds in my ears, like I’m underwater and rising too fast.

I try to push through it.

One stride. Two.

Not now.

Not in front of her.

I slow down, hoping she won’t notice, but my legs feel like they’re wading through cement. My brain starts screaming at me, something’s wrong, something’s wrong, until it’s all I can hear.

Celeste halts her steps beside me.

Her brow creases… I think.

I can’t fucking see properly.

“Julian?”

I wave her off. “I’m fine. Just winded.”

“You don’t get winded.”

“I do now.” The lie collapses when the pain spikes, and my chest tightens so violently I’m sure my heart’s giving out. “Fuck.”

My pulse is everywhere at once.

“Hey, hey.” She steps in front of me, her hands coming up to frame my face, forcing my gaze to hers. “Look at me.”

I try, but her features warp and blur.

“I think…” My voice is thin. “This is it.”

“What?”

“The end.”

She doesn’t laugh. “I think you’re having a panic attack.”

“No, it’s—” I break off, gasping. “Heart—”

“It’s not your heart,” she says, leading me to a nearby bench. “It’s your brain lying to you. Sit.”

She pushes down on my shoulders, then crouches between my knees.

“Hands here.” She takes my shaking palms and presses them to her chest. “Feel me breathe. Match it.”

I follow her instructions, but the tightness stays, choking me. “Definitely dying.”

“You’re not dying. Now in.” She breathes slowly. “Out.”

The world feels far away, like I’m watching it through glass .

“I’m right here.” Her thumbs press against my wrists, grounding me. “Again. In. Out.”

I follow her rhythm, holding onto her voice like a rope in the dark.

Gradually, the pounding in my ears eases, the tightness loosens, and air finally reaches where it’s supposed to.

By the time I can lift my head without the world tilting, I’m drained and embarrassed as hell.

She reads it instantly. “Don’t do that. You don’t get to be embarrassed.”

I huff out something that’s almost a laugh. “You’re bossy when you’re right.”

“I’m always right,” she teases softly. “Maybe we cut the run short this morning.”

I’m about to protest when she holds up a finger. “Just give me a second.”

I keep my focus on her as she walks to a nearby coffee truck.

My pulse is still uneven, and my pride is more than bruised, but if she can sit through me breaking down on a bench in public, the least I owe her is an explanation.

When she returns and presses a coffee cup into my hands, I stare down at the swirling steam and say, “My mother died.”

Her head snaps toward me. “Julian, what?”

“Not my real mother.” I fumble, correcting myself. “Or she was, technically. Fuck, I don’t know.” I drag a hand through my hair, struggling to speak clearly. “My birth mother died, and it’s been messing with my head.”

She doesn’t push. She just watches me with quiet patience, giving me space to fill the silence .

“I lied to her,” I admit, feeling the guilt fucking choke me. “Celeste, she asked for my forgiveness, and I told her she had it, but I’m not sure she does.”

Those gray, stormy eyes pin me to my seat with nothing but understanding. “Then maybe it’s not about whether she deserved it. Don’t you think you deserve the peace of giving it?”

I realize now that if I want to keep this woman in my life, I need to open up and speak the same truth I’ve spent a lifetime running from.

Inhaling a steadying breath, I rest my elbows on my knees and tell her everything.

It spills from me like water through a broken dam.

I speak about my earliest memories—the neglect, being left alone for hours, sometimes days, even as a toddler.

How the first person to ever abandon me was the woman who was supposed to love me unconditionally.

How I used to sleep with my shoes on because I never knew when we’d have to leave in the middle of the night.

How she would disappear for so long that I stopped asking when she’d come back.

After she surrendered me to the system, every new home felt colder than the last. The first foster house smelled like bleach and cigarettes.

The second one was loud, the kind of loud that’s made up of screaming and slamming doors, where the safest place to be was invisible.

I learned fast not to trust affection or promises.

I learned to take what I could carry and not to unpack it all in case I had to leave again.

Her hand finds mine at some point. I’m not sure if it’s to comfort me or herself, but it steadies me.

I describe the day my parents took me in when I was nine.

How I didn’t believe them when they said it was permanent.

I’d hide food in my room just in case, test their patience on purpose, wait for the moment they’d decide I wasn’t worth the trouble.

How I acted out as a teenager, fighting all the time, giving them endless headaches and heartaches.

Celeste’s lips twitch into a soft smile at that, as if she can picture it perfectly—me, a scowling, rebellious kid with more anger than sense.

I tell her about the nights I’d still wake up in a panic long after I’d been adopted, certain I was back in one of those houses, my bag packed in the corner, waiting to be moved again.

How even as I got older, I couldn’t shake the feeling that stability was something borrowed, not something I owned.

I keep talking, sharing pieces of myself that no one else knows.

I think about how I spent my childhood feeling unwanted and unworthy, how I convinced myself that love was a weapon and affection was a trap, how I made a career out of control because it was the only thing that kept people from leaving before I could push them out myself.

When I finally finish, Celeste’s eyes are glistening. I reach out and wipe a tear from her cheek.

“Don’t cry for me.” I smooth my thumb across her skin. “I turned out just fine.”

She leans into my touch. “You turned out more than fine.”

“Come on.” I lace my fingers through hers and pull her to her feet.

We take our time on our walk back to her apartment as I fill in the remaining years. I talk about starting the company, about running from meaningful relationships, building walls instead of bridges.

She nudges me lightly at that admission, a playful reprimand, but her hand stays tight in mine. It’s like a silent promise that she understands more than I ever expected.

I even tell her about the phone call, how my mother’s death shook me to my core, and instead of facing it, I hit the bottle.

The sky is lifting by the time we turn onto her street.

“I wish I could have been there,” she says, thumb brushing my wrist. “At the funeral.”

I bring her knuckles to my mouth and press a kiss to the back of her hand. It’s the only answer that doesn’t split me open on the sidewalk.

“How about your sisters?” she asks after a beat. “You said they wanted a relationship with you. Do you want one with them?”

“Catriona looks like her,” I say, because it’s been crowding my throat since the call.

“Same mouth. Same eyes. She’s about the age my mother was when she signed the papers.

Seeing her brought back more than seeing the woman in the bed ever did.

” I shake my head. “It shouldn’t be her burden.

I don’t want to use them to fix something they didn’t break.

Maybe coffee. Not today. When I can look at them and not see someone else. ”

She nods in understanding.

“Did you get to say goodbye?” she asks.

“I said the words she needed.”

“And if you could have said something for you?”

“I would have asked why she brought me there twice before the day she left me. Why did she hold my hand that last time when she never did before?” The sun edges a line along the tops of cars. “I would have told her I’m not the little kid she quit. I’m a man with a life she didn’t build.”

She squeezes my hand like a seal on that. “One more question?”

“You’ll have more.”

“Most likely, but they can wait.”

“Okay.”

“What would help right now?”

“You. Just you. You’re what’s helping right now.” I shift our joined hands to my chest. “And if my head starts lying to me again, use that bossy voice. It was sexy.”

She presses her face into my shoulder and laughs.

When we reach her apartment, I realize I’ve likely made her late for work, but when I say as much, she shrugs. “I don’t mind.”

I grab my gear bag and a spare suit from my car and take a shower in her apartment. Standing beneath the hot spray with my palms pressed against the cool tile, my head drops between my shoulders.

A touch on my back startles me, and I open my eyes to see Celeste stepping in. She slips beneath my arm and presses her back against the wall.

She looks at me like she can see every scar, every fracture, and doesn’t want to fix a single one.

“Hi,” she whispers.

My heart squeezes painfully in my chest. “Hi, baby.”

I stare at her, at the woman who’s seen all of me and still stands unflinching.

My throat tightens again. “Celeste, I’m so fucking sorry.”

She grabs the back of my neck and presses the briefest kiss to my mouth. “I know.”

God, I love this woman more than I’ve ever loved anything.

I love the way she meets me where I am, even when I’m a goddamn mess.

I love her strength, her stubbornness, her ability to see through every mask I’ve ever worn.

I love that she calls me on my bullshit and still somehow makes me feel like I’m worth the fight.

I respect her in a way I’ve never respected anyone because she doesn’t just demand it, she earns it.

And she terrifies me because every time she looks at me like this, like I’m hers, like I’ve always been hers, I want to give her everything.

I open my mouth, the words right there on the tip of my tongue, because she deserves to hear them, even if I don’t feel like I deserve to say them. “Celeste, I—”

“I know.” She cuts me off, understanding in her eyes so deep it roots me to the spot. “Me too.”

It’s when she pulls me back down to kiss her that I feel her wash away the shame and the guilt, replacing it in a way only she can, with warmth, forgiveness, and maybe even some acceptance.