Page 151 of Mystic's Sunrise

When I reached his door, I didn’t knock.

I didn’t hesitate.

I just opened it.

He was lying flat on the bed, arms at his sides, eyes on the ceiling like he was staring through it. He looked like he hadn’t moved in hours, like he’d folded himself into stillness because it hurt less than hope.

The bedside lamp was the only thing casting light in the room. Soft. Dim. It slid across the angles of his face, catching the scars that Chelsea had tried to convince him were monstrous. But all I saw was the face I had traced in the dark—over and over—with the reverence of a woman trying to memorize the man she loved.

My chest ached at the sight of him.

He didn’t turn his head. Didn’t move.

Because in his mind, I wasn’t here to stay.

I was here to hurt him again. Twist the knife a little deeper. Say the things he had already told himself a thousand times, and then disappear.

I didn’t let myself think. Didn’t let guilt or pride crawl back in and drag me under. I crossed the room without pause, climbed onto the bed beside him like I belonged there, like I’d never left, and slipped my arms around him—quiet and steady, no drama, no demands. Just touch. Just truth.

He went still beneath me. The kind of still that screams. The kind that comes from not knowing if the next breath will heal you or break you wide open.

His chest lifted under my cheek, then held.

I tightened my arms.

“I don’t want to fight anymore,” I whispered. The words came out dry and soft, like they’d been trapped inside me too long.

He didn’t answer.

Not right away.

His breath stayed measured. Careful. Like he was afraid to believe this was real. And maybe I didn’t deserve him to believe it—not yet. Maybe I’d earned that hesitation.

So I stayed there, cheek pressed to his shoulder, drawing strength from the steady rhythm beneath his skin. And after a long moment, I gave him the one thing I hadn’t before.

The truth.

“I just want to understand.”

The silence between us stretched.

And then… something shifted.

Not much. Just a soft drop in the tension held in his frame. Like something inside him had loosened, the first crack in a dam too long braced against collapse.

He turned his head, just slightly, and when he spoke, his voice brushed close to my temple—rough and bare, like it had clawed its way out of him.

“I didn’t tell you because I was afraid I’d lose you.”

The words didn’t surprise me. I’d already felt them, seen them in the way he looked at me that day. But hearing them broke something deeper.

Because it meant I had done exactly what he feared.

I had left.

No questions. No chances. No fight.

I had walked away like he wasn’t worth staying for, and in doing so, I’d made her words true. The ones that had haunted him for years.