Page 48 of My Best Friend Is Broken

“I know,” I say, though I’m not sure what I’m acknowledging. That everything has changed? That we’ve crossed a line we can’t uncross? That the kiss was everything I dreamed it would be and nothing like I expected all at once?

The silence stretches between us, heavy with possibility and terror and the weight of a lifetime of unspoken feelings finally given voice. I can feel his heart beating against my chest, rapid and fluttering like a bird’s wings.

“Was that...” He swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing in the golden light of the lamp. “Was that because you felt sorry for me?”

The question cuts through me like a knife. “No. God, no. That was because I’ve been wanting to do it since we were eighteen years old and too stupid to know what we were feeling.”

His eyes search my face, looking for the lie, the moment when I’ll admit this was just pity disguised as passion. But all he finds is truth. Raw and honest and completely overwhelming.

“I love you,” I tell him, and the words feel different now. Heavier. More real. “Because you’re you. Because you make me laugh and you worry about everyone except yourself and you’re the bravest person I know even when you’re falling apart.”

Tears spill down his cheeks, but they’re not the desperate, anguished tears from earlier. These are something else. Relief, maybe. Or the overwhelming emotion of finally being seen clearly by someone who matters.

“I love you too,” he whispers. “I’ve always loved you.”

The admission settles between us like a benediction. All those years of wondering, of hoping, of carefully not asking the questions we were too afraid to hear answered. All those years of loving each other from a distance, pretending friendship was enough when we both knew it could never be enough.

A few days ago we agreed to work toward this. Now, all of a sudden, it is here. Not someday. Not one day. Today.

“What happens now?” he asks.

It’s a simple question with an impossibly complex answer. What happens now that we’ve fully admitted what we are to each other? What happens now that I’ve kissed him? What happens now that we’ve stepped off the cliff of friendship into something deeper and more dangerous and more necessary than breathing?

“Now,” I say, settling beside him and pulling him against my chest, “We figure it out together. One day at a time, one night at a time.”

“And if I have more nightmares? More bad days? More moments on bridges?”

“Then I’ll be there. Every time. For as long as it takes.”

He burrows closer, pressing his face against my neck, and I can feel the exact moment when his body finally, truly relaxes. Like he’s been holding his breath for five years and can finally exhale.

“The nightmares are quieter when you’re holding me,” he murmurs against my skin.

“Then I’ll hold you every night.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

And as I lie there in the darkness, feeling his breathing slow and deepen as he drifts back to sleep, I know that something fundamental has shifted between us. We’re not just friends anymore, not just two broken people trying to heal in parallel.

We’re something new. Something that doesn’t have a name yet but feels like coming home after a very long journey.

It’s terrifying and exhilarating and completely overwhelming all at once.

As I reach for the lamp, carefully, so I don’t jostle him, I realize I’m not afraid of the future. Whatever comes next, be it nightmares or good days, bridges or coffee shops, ghosts from the past or hope for tomorrow… we’ll face it together.

And maybe, just maybe, that will be enough.

Chapter sixteen

Liam

Ican’t stop smiling.

I’m sitting in the waiting room of the probation office, surrounded by the familiar institutional atmosphere of government buildings everywhere. Fluorescent lights that buzz slightly, cheap chairs in that particular shade of green that’s supposed to be calming but just looks depressing, and the pervasive smell of disinfectant mixed with despair.

But none of it can touch me today. Not the hostile looks from the security guard, not the way the other people waiting carefully avoid eye contact, not even the way my skin crawls at being back in a place with locked doors and people in uniforms making decisions about my life.