Chapter 212
I held on until I couldn’t anymore. Until the memories hurt more than they healed. Until surviving required letting him go.
He’s still standing where I once stood. Still holding on. Still grieving… and somehow, knowing that, seeing it, makes my heart burn and soften at the same time.
I take a small sip of cocoa before speaking. My voice is barely above a whisper. “Is that why you were in there tonight p>
He nods once, still staring into his cup like the hot chocolate might offer answers he can’t find anywhere else.
“Yeah, it’s the only way I can feel close to Chloe.” His throat works as he swallows. “With you back in my life, I feel like she’s slipping away from me. Like the more things I remember about you…the more I forget about her p>
The words land like a punch and God help me, I feel his pain like it’s mine.
Chloe was terrible to me. She hurt me in ways I still don’t fully understand, but that doesn’t erase the truth. Noah loved her. She was the love of his life and losing her shattered him.
I know what it feels like to lose someone who owns your whole heart. Noah didn’t die, but I still lost him, and losing him was brutal.
When he chose Chloe over me. When he cut me out of his life. When he married her… It was agony I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.
There were days I could barely get out of bed. Days where everything tasted like dust. Where breathing hurt. Where my chest felt hollow, scraped raw, stripped of anything warm or whole. I was a ghost. A shell of who I used to be. It took Lilly and divine intervention to drag me back from the edge.
So when he says he’s scared of forgetting Chloe, of betraying her memory, I understand that pain more than he thinks.
“I don’t understand,” he murmurs, still staring at his cup. “I don’t know what changed. It shouldn’t be like this, yet I can’t help it. I gravitate toward you.” 1
My heart stutters. We’ve had emotional conversations before, back when we were kids fumbling our way through first loves and first heartbreaks, but none of them felt like this.
This is raw and unfiltered. This is a man unraveling. 1
I swallow. “I don’t get it either, Noah. I don’t understand how you know things about me when you hated me.
For the first time tonight, he looks directly at me. Those stormy gray eyes lock onto mine with an intensity that steals my breath.
He sets his cup aside and slowly steps closer, like he’s afraid I’ll run.
I don’t move. I can’t.
And then, heavens, he lifts his hand and gently cups my cheek. My eyes flutter as his thumb strokes over my skin,
“I never hated you, Sierra,” he says softly, eyes searching mine. “I was just hurt… You hurt me, and I retaliated in the only way I knew p>
The world tilts, and my heart stops.
I hurt him? When? How? He was the one who shattered me. He was the one who walked away.
He was the one who destroyed everything we were.
Before I can speak, before I can ask what the hell he means, he drops his hand, picks up his cup, and turns away.
“Noah…” I start.
But he’s already leaving the kitchen, his broad shoulders disappearing down the hall before I can even find the right words.
He leaves me standing there, stunned, confused, shaken down to bone, wondering what he meant. Wondering what exactly happened that I never knew about? 1