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almost

KIERAN

I don’t say much as I lead her away from the garden. I don’t have to. Her hand in mine is enough. The shape of it, and the way she lets me hold it, lets me guide her even now, says more than any words ever could.

I give her fingers a gentle squeeze. Not rushed. Not coaxing. Just steady. Just here.

We cross the lawn in silence, the night folding in around us. It’s cooler now, the warmth of the fire giving way to the crisp edge of autumn air. The ground crunches softly beneath our steps, damp grass and gravel mixing underfoot as we reach the back gate.

The moon hangs low above the trees, swollen and golden, casting everything in a silver haze. It spills across the field like light poured from a cracked bowl, glinting in the dew, catching in the folds of her cardigan, turning her hair to spun glass in the dark.

She still doesn’t speak. Just walks beside me, our hands linked, her skin cool from the breeze. But I keep my grip steady.

The house disappears behind us as we cross into the open field. The grass gets longer out here, swaying in soft waves beneath the breeze, and up ahead, the tree comes into view.

My tree.

The one I’ve known since I was a kid. The one I used to run to when the world got too loud. Gnarled roots breaking the earth like old bones, branches stretched wide like it’s holding the sky open.

“This was always my spot.”

She doesn’t answer right away. Just turns her head, taking in the view. The lake shimmers below us, glassy and still. Fireflies blink along the edge of the reeds. Somewhere far off, a frog croaks once and falls silent.

When she speaks, her voice is small, but not weak. “It’s beautiful.”

“Yeah,” I say, still watching her. “It is.”

We sit down together beneath the old oak.

Our shoulders brush as we lean back against the bark.

I shift, tucking one leg underneath me and hooking my other arm over a bent knee, steadying myself without thinking.

She wraps her cardigan tighter around herself, pulling both knees toward her like she’s trying to disappear into the fabric.

Her fingers toy absently with the hem of her dress, tracing invisible patterns into the soft cotton.

She’s so quiet that if I were anyone else, I might fill the silence. But I don’t. I wait. I let her be.

And then, when she’s ready, she says it.

“David cheated on me.”

The words land like a punch to the ribs.

She exhales slowly, and I watch her fold in on herself just slightly. The way her shoulders dip, the tight edge in her voice. It's like saying it costs her something physical. Her next breath comes thinner, more brittle.

“It was the night we got back from Coral Point,” she whispers. “I came home, walked into our bedroom, and he was in bed with someone else. He thought I was coming back the next day.”

My spine goes rigid against the bark. My jaw locks. Fury rises, hot and fast, blurring the edges of my vision.

She doesn’t cry. Doesn’t flinch. She just stares out at the lake, unmoving. But the way she holds herself, like she’s balancing on the last fraying thread of something she hasn't dared to let unravel, guts me.

I shift closer, not touching her yet. Just near enough that if she needed someone to lean into, I’d already be there. “Have you told anyone else?”

She hesitates, then shakes her head. “Only my parents,” she says, voice tight. “But it fell on flat ears. Like they heard me, but didn’t hear me.”

Her throat works around the silence.

“I haven’t even told Naomi,” she admits. “I couldn’t. I felt—ashamed. Like if I said it out loud again, it would make it more real. Like maybe it was my fault for letting it get this far.”

She goes even quieter. “But it wasn’t just the cheating, Kieran.”

She pauses… and then it begins.

Not all at once. In slow, jagged pieces. Like ice cracking underfoot—sharp, sudden, impossible to stop once it starts.

She tells me about the lies. The gambling. The manipulation. The slow erosion of trust. The emails. The debt collectors. The loans against the house. The bank account he drained down to nothing while she kept putting dinner on the table and sweets in Mia’s coat pocket.

She talks about the way he wore her down. The slow, grinding collapse of her confidence. The manipulation that made her doubt her own instincts until silence felt safer than speaking.

Her voice stays quiet, almost clinical, like she's reciting someone else’s story. But every word feels like a shard of glass driving deeper into my chest.

And I just sit there, letting it wash over me. Every broken piece. Every unspoken hurt she’s stitched in to herself for years.

Because the worst part isn’t the cheating. It isn’t even the lies. It’s that he made her believe she had to endure it. That she wasn’t allowed to want more.

When she finally runs out of words, she just sits there. Small and still, like the weight of it has hollowed her out.

My hands are fists against my knees, every instinct in me screaming to fix this, to go back in time and rip her out of that house the first moment he made her feel less than whole. But I can’t.

All I can do is be here.

Now.

I shift closer, careful not to startle her, and speak low, rough. “Ellie... none of that is your fault.”

She pauses, and when she speaks again, her voice is brittle.

“I saw the signs. Not that he was cheating—not that. But that it wasn’t healthy.

And I stayed anyway. I kept pretending. Kept defending him.

And the second I stopped, it all crumbled.

” She swallows hard. “And when it did, I felt like the weakest version of myself. Like breaking under it meant I’d failed. ”

I don’t rush to fill the silence. I just watch her. And my heart cracks open for her all over again.

“You didn’t fail,” I reassure her. “You stayed because you loved him. Because you thought you were doing the right thing—for Mia, for yourself. That doesn’t make you weak. That makes you human.”

She blinks rapidly, like she’s trying to stop the tears before they fall. I shift a little closer, my voice low, steady.

“And now you’re here. Picking up the pieces. You’re not broken, Ellie. You’re brave .”

She says nothing. Just sits there, rigid and aching in the half-light, like the weight of it all might cave her in.

So I reach for her hand. Slow. Careful. I don’t thread my fingers through hers—just rest my palm against the back of her hand, warm and steady. My thumb brushes once across her knuckles.

Her breath stutters, and for a second, I think she might pull away.

But then—her fingers turn, curling up into mine with a grip that’s not strong, but certain .

She leans in, forehead pressing lightly to my shoulder, and I feel her exhale—slow and shaky—like it’s the first breath she’s taken in hours.

“I don’t know why I said it now,” she murmurs, a voice so small it nearly disappears. “I wasn’t even planning to.”

“I’m glad you did.”

“I feel like if I say it, it’ll become real,” she whispers. “And I’ll have to face what it means. What I let happen.”

“No.” My voice is firm, low. I shift fully toward her now. “Don’t do that. Don’t carry it like it’s yours to own. This is his mess, Ellie. Not yours. Never yours.”

She drops her gaze to our hands, fingers twisting with mine. “I spent so long convincing myself it was just stress. That the distance was normal. That if I worked harder, he’d come back to me.” Her voice breaks again, lower now, almost a breath. “I made excuses until there were none left.”

Gently, I reach out and cup her face, the familiar shape of her drawing me in like a tide I can’t fight. My thumb finds the tiny heart-shaped mole just below her left cheekbone, so familiar it hurts, and I brush over it without thinking, like my hand remembers even after all this time.

“Listen to me.” I murmur, softer now. “That man broke every promise he made to you and still found a way to blame you for it. That’s not love, Ellie. That’s cowardice. That’s cruelty.”

For a second, her chin wobbles. A sharp flash of grief in her eyes. But she swallows it down like she’s done a thousand times before.

I lower my voice even more. Barely above a whisper. “I hate that you carried all of this on your own.”

The breeze catches the edge of her cardigan, carrying the scent of her skin. Sun-warmed petals, a hint of musk, and the slow, golden sweetness of vanilla. I breathe it in like it’s the only thing anchoring me.

And then, so soft I almost miss it…

“Kieran?”

I look up instantly. “Yeah?”

Her voice shakes, but the words come clear. “Will you just… hold me?”

There’s no hesitation. No thought. I open my arms, and she moves in to me without a second's pause.

But she doesn’t just lean.

She climbs into me. Straddles my lap, curling in to my chest like she’s trying to disappear there. Her cardigan pools between us, her knees bracketing my hips, and her arms hook tight around my shoulders like she’s scared she’ll float away if she doesn’t anchor herself.

And I hold her. I hold her like it’s the only thing I was ever made for.

Her breath stutters against my throat, sharp and shallow. She clutches the back of my hoodie like it’s a lifeline, her whole body trembling with the silent force of what she’s finally letting herself feel.

And then, the first tear. Hot against my skin. Heavy with everything she’s never said.

And it wrecks me.

I tighten my arms around her, cradling the back of her head, whispering nothing but steady breaths into her hair. No rushing. No fixing. Just holding.

Her breathing slows eventually, but she doesn’t let go. Neither do I.

I keep my arms locked tight around her, feeling every shudder, every broken tremor of breath against my chest. I press my mouth into her hair, letting her know without words I’m here.

After a while, she shifts, her fingers loosening from my hoodie and moving higher until both hands cup my jaw.

It’s so gentle it almost undoes me. Her thumbs brush over the stubble along my cheeks, tentative and trembling, tracing the corner of my mouth like she’s not sure if I’m real.

Her touch is heartbreakingly soft, so careful, it feels like worship and devastation all at once.

I stop breathing when the pad of her thumb grazes my bottom lip. Slowly, so fucking slowly, she leans back enough to look at me. Her eyes are glassy, rimmed with red, but they don’t hide. They burn. Fierce and raw and alive.

“I don’t know what this is,” she whispers, her voice cracking right down the middle. “I don’t know what I’m feeling, Kieran. It’s too much… I don’t understand any of it.”

I cover her hands with mine, steadying them against my jaw. My fingers curl gently over hers, holding her in place. Holding us in place.

“I do,” I say, rough and certain. And fuck, I mean it. I let my forehead fall to hers, closing my eyes against the flood of feeling rising too fast to name.

I feel her breath catch against my mouth, but I keep going, every word carved from the centre of me. “I want you, Ellie. Every part of you. Not the perfect pieces. Not the polished ones. You. As you are. Right now.”

My hands slide up the curve of her back, slow and reverent, until my palms cradle the nape of her neck, feeling the wild thrum of her pulse under my fingertips.

“I’ve wanted you since the moment I saw you four years ago,” I say, my voice roughening. “And not just the version I knew then. Every version of you. The woman you’ve become. The mother. The fighter. The one who still shows up with kindness even when the world’s tried to rip it out of her.”

I pull in a slow breath, feeling her trembling in my hands, and the truth falls from me, raw and easy. “I tried to move on. Tried to forget. But the truth is... I never stopped thinking about you. Not really. It’s always been you.”

Her breath hitches against mine, and I feel the shift. The way something inside her bends toward me, fragile and fierce all at once.

I move just slightly, angling her closer.

“And right now?” I breathe, my voice gravelled with everything I’m holding back, “all I want is to kiss you until you forget every time he made you feel like you weren’t enough.

To touch you like you deserve. To show you.

With my hands, my mouth, every part of me, that you’re not too much. That you’re everything.”

For a second, she just looks up at me under the silvered glow of the moon, her eyes wide and uncertain as her hands tighten against my jaw.

And I swear, if I wasn’t already hers, completely and hopelessly.

This would’ve been the moment that finished me.

“I want to hear the way you sound when it’s me making you come undone, Ellie.” I breathe, my forehead pressing closer to hers now. “I want to rewrite every lie he ever burned into you and make you remember what it feels like to be wanted for exactly who you are.”

Her lips part in a shaky breath and for a heartbeat she leans in.

It would be so easy. So God damn easy to close the gap, to give in to the wildfire roaring between us.

And fuck, I want to.

But I don’t. I won’t. Not like this. Not when she’s still bleeding.

Instead, I press the faintest kiss to her forehead. “But not tonight, baby.”

Her body trembles in my lap, and I gather her closer, wrapping my arms around her.

“You’ve been through hell. And you’re allowed to heal. You’re allowed to take your time. You don’t owe anyone a thing.”

She shudders out a breath, the fight bleeding out of her bones as she melts into me again. I don’t rush it. I don’t ask for more. I just hold her until I feel her breathing even out against my chest.

“When you’re ready—truly ready. I’ll be right here. And I promise, I’ll show you how to feel everything again.”

I kiss the crown of her head and tighten my arms around her once more, swearing to myself, as long as she needs me, I’ll never let her fall again.