“Eli.” Harlow’s soft voice stops me short.
I should leave. I’ve already done what I told myself I wouldn’t; there’s no reason to make it worse.
But I can’t make myself walk away from Harlow. Or Abel, for that matter.
I turn and pad to the bed. She lifts a hand, and I let her take mine and tug me down to the mattress. It really isn’t big enough for three people, but Abel’s pressed against the wall, and there’s a little space for me to stretch out next to Harlow.
There was a time early in our relationship when we were still so giddy and drunk on love that we would stay up most nights and lie just like this, sharing secrets in the intimacy of the dark. It’s how she told me about her father and what she’d done to be free of him. It’s where I confessed the truth of the night of the coup. Big secrets and smaller ones, too. Like how I’d always wanted a sibling but had seen the Paine brothers as stand-ins for those roles. How she loved kids but wasn’t sure she wanted them for herself.
She runs her fingers over my knuckles. “Hey.”
“Hey.” This moment feels as fragile as a soap bubble. One wrong move will send us hurtling back to the space we were in during Lammas and immediately after. Hurt so intense, it feels like hate. Poisoned words and bitter actions.
I glance over her shoulder at Abel, but he’s still relaxed in sleep. I don’t believe it for a second, but I also appreciate him giving us the illusion of privacy. I lift our intertwined hands and kiss her wrist “I have something to say, if you’ll hear it.”
“Asking my permission now?”
I barely fight down a grimace. “Occasionally, I’m a slow learner.” I hesitate, but she finally nods in the shadows. An indication to continue. “I’m starting to realize how thoroughly I’ve fucked up when it comes to you.”
“Yes.” The word is so soft, it’s barely an exhale. “But I think we can agree it’s a mutual fuckup.”
She’s giving me an out, but I want this verbalized between us. Five years of doing what I thought was right and ignoring all signs to the contrary. “I don’t know when I stopped listening to you. You’ve just gone through so much, survived so much, that I wanted to provide you with a safe haven.” She tenses, but I keep going. “But that was my goal, not yours. I realize that now. You never wanted safety.”
“There is no safety in this world, Eli.” She squeezes my hand. “Not really.”
“Yeah, I get that now.” I close my eyes for a moment. “I know apologizing isn’t enough, but I’m sorry, Harlow. I could see how bad things were getting, but I thought if I just held you closer, if I just did all the old things that used to work, it would all figure itself out. I didn’t realize I was suffocating you.”
She exhales, long and slow. “I should have tried harder to talk to you.”
“I don’t know if it would have made a difference. I had a narrative in my head.” It’s humbling as fuck to realize how intensely I messed things up between us. A truth that it had taken Abel less than an hour to divine. “I meant what I said yesterday. I still love you. I’m not ready to let this go.”
She’s so still, I’m not sure she’s breathing. “You told Abel the truth.”
I glance over her shoulder, but he hasn’t moved. Yeah, there’s no way he’s sleeping right now. I give a wry smile. “Yeah, though I don’t know what difference it makes.”
“It makes a difference.” She reaches out a tentative hand and feathers her fingers over my jaw. “This is going to be messy, Eli. No matter what else is true, that is.”
“Seems to me that the payoff is worth the mess.” Guilt feels like an almost physical thing in my chest and throat. “It took him an hour to realize what I’d spent five years intentionally not seeing. Even now, part of me wants to protect you. I know you’re capable, Harlow. I’ve always known that. But my instinct is always going to be to step between you and harm.”
She gives a sad little laugh. “I’m starting to realize that’s a quirk of yours that doesn’t only apply to me.”
No, it doesn’t. There’s a reason I let so few people close to me. “That doesn’t make it right.”
“No, it doesn’t.” She strokes her hand down my neck and presses it against my chest over my heart. “Maybe we were always missing something, Eli. Maybe we were always missing him.”
“I have no right to expect his forgiveness. Or yours.”
“Maybe not.” I can hear the smile in her voice even if I can’t see her face clearly. “But the decision to forgive isn’t about whether or not you deserve it or expect it. Either way, it takes time. We… Eli, we have time. We have an entire year to figure out if we can make it work.” She presses her hand more firmly against my chest. “Will you promise to try?”