Page 56 of Midnight Between Us (The Timberbridge Brothers #4)

Chapter Fifty-One

Sims,

I wasn’t sure if I should write again. You didn’t exactly ask me to, but your last letter didn’t say not to. Maybe that tiny crack in the door you left open is the only thing I’ve been holding onto.

You said something that’s stayed with me:

That we’re finally saying all the things we should’ve said back then.

You’re right, but there’s something I keep coming back to over and over:

Even if I had said the right words—I still wasn’t the right man.

Not then.

I didn’t know how to be whole. I didn’t even know what that looked like.

I thought being strong meant hiding the broken pieces.

I thought being strong meant punching the other person harder so they wouldn’t be able to fight back.

I thought being strong was everything my father represented. Of course, I was wrong.

So fucking wrong . . . but I don’t think any of us would have survived if we didn’t fight back. It became a problem when we were punching everything and anything that seemed like a threat to us or the ones we loved.

I used to believe love was something I had to earn—through pain, through sacrifice, through bleeding and breaking, and still saying, “I’m fine.”

And even then, I didn’t think I deserved it.

But I see it differently now.

Love isn’t about earning or deserving.

It’s not about perfect timing or flawless people.

It’s about choosing, again and again—even when it’s hard, even when you’re scared, even when you’re still healing.

So this is me, not asking for forgiveness.

Not expecting a future you haven’t offered.

Just standing still for once.

Not running.

Not hiding.

Just here, wanting you to know that I see you. That I ache to know the version of you who survived me. The version who pieced herself back together after I wrecked what should’ve been sacred. I want to know the woman you are now—stronger, wiser, maybe even more beautiful because of every scar.

And if there’s any part of you that still wants to know me—even just as the boy who once loved you with every shattered piece he had left—then maybe that’s enough.

Maybe that’s where we begin again.

Thank you for reading these.

Yours always,

Keir