“You think I don’t see it?” he says quietly.
“The way your hands shake when you think no one’s looking. The way you laugh like it’s borrowed, like happiness is something you’ll have to give back.”
She doesn’t respond. Her gaze flickers away, like it always does when things get too real.
But he doesn’t stop.
“You walk around like you're made of glass no one ever wanted to keep. Like you’ve convinced yourself that being broken makes you unlovable.”
“But god, if only you knew.” His voice drops, soft like moonlight.
“If only you knew what it does to me, watching you survive. Watching you exist in spite of everything. You are the storm and the stillness. You are poetry scribbled in margins and I am learning every line by heart.”
She shakes her head, “I’m a mess.”
He steps closer.
“Then I’ll love you like one. I’ll be the hands that hold when you collapse. I’ll be the breath in your lungs when you forget how to keep going. You don’t have to be okay for me to stay. You just have to be.”
He leans in, eyes bright with something holy.
“You’re my favorite thing the universe got wrong, and I would still choose you in every lifetime, every version, every ruined world.”
