@gallowsheart ( X )
Feyre’s hand moved on instinct.
To smooth the furrow in his brow.
To trace the edge of his jaw.
To offer something soft in the face of so much hurt.
But she didn’t reach him.
Her hand stopped short, fingers curling in midair before she let them fall back to her side. Like touching him would make it worse—for her, for him, for everything they never said out loud.
The guilt twisted in her gut before she could stop it.
Of course you reached for him. Of course you did.
James would call it selfish. Emotional bleeding. Needy.
She hadn’t even realized how much that voice—the one that wasn’t hers—had made itself at home in her head. All sharp edges dressed up like protection.
She swallowed hard.
She hadn’t cried when James snapped at her. Not when he called her exhausting. Not when he gripped her arm hard enough to bruise and told her she should be grateful he still gave a damn.
She hadn’t cried when she curled up in the corner of his apartment afterward, willing herself smaller, quieter, less.
But this?
This was the ache that threatened to break her open.
Theo’s voice. Theo’s face. The furrow in his brow that meant he saw her. That he cared— maybe in the wrong way—but still.
It would be easier if he didn’t.
If he hadn’t come looking.
If he hadn’t asked.
“Are you happy?”
She asked, voice nearly above a whisper.
“Were we ever really happy? . . . Did you ever care to hear my real answer before?”
God. She wanted to scream. Wanted to shake him by the collar and say Where were you? When it mattered? When she needed him? When she was folding in on herself and calling it self-growth?
But she didn’t scream.
Instead, she breathed. Shallow. Unsteady.
And tried not to cry in the middle of the sidewalk like a girl with a broken heart and no more excuses left.
“What does happy even look like?”
Was it James leaving her sunflower stems in a cracked vase? Or the way he flinched when she got too animated about frogs or stars or the way light looked when it passed through leaves?
Was it someone who stayed but never really saw her?
Someone who showed up but never chose her?
Was it this?
This moment—standing here in front of the boy she’d loved since before she knew what love even was—trying to convince herself that what she had now was enough?
Her chest burned. Her hands trembled. And still, she said nothing of what she was thinking.
Instead, she lifted her eyes to his, and with all the gentleness she could muster—voice steady only because it had to be—she said:
“Maybe I don’t know what happy really is… Maybe I’m finally trying to learn what that actually looks like.”
That was all she could give him.
All the truth she could afford without collapsing.
And even that nearly undid her.
