VOLUME I ACT I CHAPTER THREE One Step Closer (Part One)
VOLUME I
ACT I
CHAPTER THREE
One Step Closer
(Part One)
It started with a small crack in his voice.
I wasn’t supposed to be downstairs. It was 2:17 AM. Everyone was asleep. The house hummed in silence, except for the soft clinking sound I followed to the kitchen.
He was there, hunched over the sink, rinsing a glass with one hand, phone in the other. He didn’t notice me until I spoke.
“Couldn’t sleep?”
He jumped slightly, then smiled when he saw me. “You scared the hell out of me.”
I stepped closer. “Sorry.”
“No, it’s fine. Just… didn’t expect anyone.”
I nodded. “Want company?”
He hesitated. Then gestured to the stools by the counter. “Sure.”
There was a long pause after I sat down. Not awkward. Just full. He placed the clean glass on the drying rack and leaned back against the counter, arms folded.
“I was reading old messages.”
I didn’t ask from who. I already knew.
“From her?” I asked gently.
He didn’t answer right away. Then, a nod.
“I don’t know why I still read them. It's like... I’m waiting to feel something. Anger. Sadness. Anything. But it’s just blank.”
That was the first time he talked about his ex without looking haunted.
I watched his fingers trace the rim of the counter as he leaned there, eyes slightly glassy. Not from tears, but from exhaustion — or maybe regret. I couldn’t tell. Maybe both.
“You don’t have to talk about her,” I offered quietly. “Not if it hurts.”
He tilted his head, studying me for a moment. “It doesn’t. That’s the weird part. It’s like remembering someone else’s life.”
My heart ached in sympathy, but my mind was already turning. Strategizing. Understanding that this was a door — one I could either knock on softly or walk through with confidence.
“She didn’t deserve to be remembered, you know,” I said, just barely above a whisper.
He smiled faintly, almost bitterly. “Funny. You didn’t even know her.”
I smiled back. “I didn’t have to. I know you.”
His eyes locked on mine for a second too long. Long enough that my heart thundered against my ribs. Long enough that the silence between us felt electric, like it could spark into something if one of us dared to move.
But he didn’t. And I didn’t. Because this wasn’t that moment. Not yet.
Instead, he sighed and sat beside me.
“She made me feel like I had to earn love. Every day.”
My breath caught in my throat.
“She made me feel like I had to earn love. Every day,” he said again, softer this time, like it was the first time he’d admitted it out loud.
I didn’t speak. I just listened.
He ran a hand through his hair, the muscles in his jaw working, tense. “It was like... if I forgot to compliment her outfit, or if I was five minutes late, she’d pull away. Give me silence. Or guilt.”
“That’s not love,” I said quietly.
He turned toward me, his eyes searching. “No. It wasn’t.”
Then he looked away again. “But for a long time, I thought it was.”
There it was — the crack. The vulnerability. The place where I could slip in, not with manipulation, but with truth.
I reached out again, gently this time, resting my hand over his. “You don’t have to earn anything with me.”
His hand didn’t move.
He didn’t pull away.
Instead, he flipped his palm over and slowly, deliberately, laced our fingers together.
My heart thundered.
He didn’t say anything. Neither did I.
But in that moment, in that silence — something shifted.
He was starting to choose me.
And I knew, with terrifying clarity, that I would never let him go.
That weekend passed too quickly.
He didn’t say anything more about our late-night conversation, but something between us had clearly changed. It was in the way he looked at me now—just a little longer, a little softer. And in the way he sat next to me at breakfast like he didn’t want too much space between us.
His mom noticed it too. I could see it in her eyes. The way she smiled knowingly every time I handed him something or laughed at his dumb jokes. She had always liked me, but now she was watching us like we were becoming something real.
I went home Sunday night, still wrapped in the warmth of his hand around mine.
For the next week, we texted every day.
It started with casual things, memes, reminders for his brother, inside jokes from childhood stories his mom had told me.
But then it turned into more.
“What do you think you’d be doing if you weren’t in your field?” he asked one night.
“Probably something boring,” I replied. “But if I was being honest with myself? Writing.”
“I can see that,” he texted. “You’re scary observant.”
I stared at that message longer than I meant to.
Was that admiration?
Or was I slipping?
I shook the thought off. I had worked too hard for this.
One night, he asked if I wanted to come with him to his alma mater. He had volunteered to give a small speech at a sports event they were holding. He said his old coach invited him, and that it’d be fun if I tagged along.
“You’re practically family anyway,” he said.
That phrase. Again.
Family.
It thrilled me and gutted me all at once.
The drive up to his college was surreal.
I had stalked his old college dorm online before. Had memorized the campus map. Knew which building he stayed in, where he used to grab coffee, where his ex had posted a picture of them once at a fountain bench.
But this time, I was there, next to him in the passenger seat. Laughing at his stupid playlist. Pointing out how he always missed the same turn, just like his mom said.
“You’re so comfortable with me,” he said once, mid-laugh.
I shrugged. “You make it easy.”
He smiled and reached over to ruffle my hair. My stomach flipped.
The night of the event, he looked... radiant.
Clean white shirt. Rolled-up sleeves. That quiet kind of confidence that made people listen before he even opened his mouth.
He spoke about teamwork, resilience, setbacks. But I watched his brother, his younger brother, watch me watching him.
And I knew.
He was starting to suspect something.
After the speech, we walked through the quad under yellow campus lights. There were only a few students milling around.
“I didn’t know you were this good at public speaking,” I said.
He chuckled. “You just never saw me in my prime.”
“I think this might be your prime,” I replied.
He paused and looked at me.
“I hope not. Because if this is it... I want you in it.”
My breath caught.
And then he smiled, nudging me like he hadn’t just set my entire bloodstream on fire.
We drove back in silence, but the good kind. The kind where you don’t have to say anything because every word has already been said in your glances.