Page 48 of The Lies Of Omission (Without Limits #3)

SIN

I kicked the door shut with my heel, arms full of junk food I didn’t even want—coffee I wouldn’t drink, pastries I’d picked out just to fill space. I needed something in my hands that wasn’t him. Something to carry because my chest already felt too fucking full.

Thalia looked up from the couch, long legs curled under her and a blanket over her lap like the embodiment of “safe space.” She didn’t say anything. Just lifted one brow and stared at me like she was watching a fuse burn slowly.

I dropped the coffee and junk food on the table and flopped down next to her, dramatic as hell, because if I didn’t lean into it, I’d explode. “I hate this,” I muttered.

“You’re gonna have to narrow that down,” she said, brushing her hair off her shoulder. “The coffee? Your life choices? Theo?”

I glared at her. “Yes.”

She laughed softly and leaned forward to steal one of the pastries. “Talk.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Too bad. I know that’s why you’re here and not where I left your car.”

I pulled the blanket over my head like a sullen teenager. “He picked me,” I said, my voice muffled. “He could’ve had everything. All the money, all the power, all his legacy shit, and yet he still picked me .”

Thalia didn’t respond right away. She let the silence do the heavy lifting. That’s how I knew she was my only real friend—she wasn’t afraid to let things breathe.

“I heard what he said to his father,” she said eventually. “He chose you before you even knew it. The way he looked at you, Sin... like you hung the damn moon. And when you left, he looked like a kicked puppy.”

I peeked out from under the blanket like a gremlin. “Gross.”

“Romantic.”

“Disgusting.”

Thalia rolled her eyes. “You’re such a brat.”

“Your brat,” I muttered, nudging her with my foot.

“Always.” Her smile softened. “But Sin… this is your chance. Real happiness. Not the performative, drug-fueled chaos we used to chase just to feel something. This— he —is different.”

I stared up at the ceiling. “I know. That’s the problem.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, T.” The words tumbled from me before I could stop them. “I know how to flirt. I know how to fuck. I know how to ruin people with a look. But love? Relationships? That’s like... trying to speak a language no one ever taught me.”

“Maybe you don’t need to speak it perfectly,” she said. “Maybe it’s enough to try? Not to be one to state the obvious, but I think you’re both in the same boat here.”

My throat burned. “What if I fuck it up?”

“You will. Eventually. We all do. But love isn’t about getting it perfect. Love is about showing up after the storm and saying, ‘I’m still here’.”

I didn’t say anything for a long time. I just stared at the window and let her words sink in. She was right. She always was. I just didn’t want to admit how scared I was. Because, for the first time in my entire life, I had something worth losing.

“You really think I can do this?” I asked, quieter now.

Thalia turned to face me fully. “I think if you don’t, you’ll regret it every single day.

And you’ll never forgive yourself for walking away from something good.

Especially when he told the world who he really was.

He didn’t do that for just anyone. Did he?

” Her eyes bored into me like they were drilling in my head. “No, he did it for you.”

I blinked back the sudden rush of emotion, eyes stinging. “I hate when you’re right.”

She smirked. “No you don’t. You love that someone knows you well enough to see past the bratty attitude.”

I scoffed and sat up, shoving the blanket off me. “Okay. So let’s say I do this. How? Where the fuck do I start?”

Thalia grinned. “With one honest sentence.”

I gave her a side-eye. “That’s vague and useless.”

She leaned in, brushing imaginary lint off my shirt. “Then let me be more specific. Next time you see him, say what you’re scared of. Tell him you don’t know what you’re doing. Tell him you want to try anyway.”

I exhaled hard, then ran my hands through my hair. “And what if he laughs?”

“He won’t.” Thalia’s voice was firm.

I looked at her. At the only person who has ever stood beside me without trying to fix me or fuck me or use me. And I realized for the first time in a long time that maybe I wasn’t doing this alone.

“Thanks,” I said softly.

“Always.”

I stood, stretching, trying to shake the nerves crawling under my skin. “God, I feel like I’m about to walk into an execution.”

Thalia laughed. “No, babe. You’re walking into a new beginning.”

Maybe I was ready for it. Maybe I wasn’t. But I’d spent so long begging him to stop running, to turn around and face me. Now it was my turn to stand still. To stay.

He had done everything I asked—every impossible thing. The only question left was: Was I ready to do the same?

I kissed Thalia on the cheek, murmured a soft thank you and headed to my room, dragging my feet. I didn’t have the strength to talk anymore. Her silence said she understood. She always did. She was the only one who ever had—until Theo.

I shut my door. Let it snick into place like a lid, sealing off a too-full jar.

The weight fell from me like a sodden jacket, too heavy to carry any further.

I didn’t bother undressing. Didn’t care that my boots were caked in grass and mud, or that I was still wearing the same clothes I wore to work last night.

I let myself fall onto the mattress face-first, blackout blinds muting the world in a way even silence couldn’t.

The exhaustion wasn’t just in my muscles. It had rooted itself in my marrow. Wrapped around my lungs like iron chains. I could still feel it—that tight coil of tension pulled taut for years, finally starting to snap.

And last night? It had cut me open. Memories hit like rapid fire as my eyes fell closed. Theo standing in front of his father— his father—and a marquee full of people, voice shaking, shouting my name. Not caring who heard. Not caring what it cost him.

Theo told his truth. He walked away from power, from prestige, from the legacy that shaped and scarred him. He walked away from everything. And ran straight into me.

Said he loved me .

Me. The fuck-up. The disappointment. The boy nobody ever wanted to keep. And now? I had everything I ever wanted. And I had no fucking clue how to hold it without breaking it.

The door creaked open. I didn’t move. My body wouldn’t let me. My eyes refused to open. Half-asleep. Half-scared.

“Sin?” Theo’s voice. Low. Barely a whisper. Like he thought even that might scare me off.

I rolled onto my side after a few steadying deep breaths. He was framed by the hall light, looking like a question in human form. One I’d never been brave enough to answer before.

He hovered in the doorway, like he was waiting for permission to be here. But he didn’t need it. He always belonged here. In this room. In my chaos. In me.

“I’m sorry I didn’t call,” I said hoarsely. “I guess that’s my version of a cry for help.”

Theo stepped in. Closed the door behind him gently, like he grew up in a house where slamming doors meant pain. He crossed the floor in quiet, careful steps and sat at the edge of the bed—but didn’t touch me yet.

“I didn’t want to assume,” he murmured.

“You didn’t,” I whispered. “I’m just… fucked in the head.”

He looked at me then, eyes stripping away the layers of bravado I wore like amour. There was no pity in those green depths. Just heartbreak and understanding—which was somehow worse. Pity you could survive. This … chipped away at something in me.

“I keep thinking this isn’t real,” I said. “That I’ll wake up and you’ll be gone. Or worse, still here…but not with me—with her. That I’ll ruin it. That I’ll ruin you. And maybe that’d be easier than watching you go piece by piece.”

Theo leaned forward. Close enough that I could feel his breath on my lips. “Can I touch you, sweetheart?” he asked.

That question… fuck. It broke me. “Y-yeah,” I rasped. “Please.”

He reached for my hand and laced his fingers through mine. His grip was warm, solid. Real.

“I’ve spent most of my life being told how I felt was wrong,” he said. “That I was broken. Sick. That what I needed—what I was —could be cured. Erased.”

I didn’t breathe. Just listened. No matter how many times he told me, it hurt like it was the first. But I’d learned the more you spoke about something the less power it held over you.

“He put me in that place when I was fifteen. Told me it’d make me better,” He started.

“It didn’t. It just taught me to smile through pain.

To pretend I wasn’t drowning. To fake normal so well, I forgot what it meant to feel anything.

” He swallowed hard. His voice trembled, but he didn’t stop. “Then I met you, Sin.”

His large hand cupped my face and something in my chest twisted so sharply I couldn’t tell if it hurt or healed.

“You were loud. Angry. And full of fire I didn’t know how to hold without burning.

But you saw me. You called me out on every lie I’d ever told myself.

And I hated you for it—until I didn’t.” He laughed, but it cracked like glass.

“I think I started falling for you the moment you called me a ‘buttoned-up closet case with daddy issues’.”

Despite myself, I huffed out a chuckle. “I wasn’t wrong.”

“No,” he said, forehead pressing against mine. “You weren’t. But you also didn’t run. And every time I pushed you away, you stood your ground. Until I finally got tired of running.”

I let my eyes fall closed, fear nipping at my skin. “I’m still scared,” I confessed. “Scared I’ll mess this up. Scared I’m not good enough for this. For you.”

“You don’t have to be good enough,” he whispered. “You just have to be here. With me.”