The police were gone. The sirens faded. The blood on the kitchen floor had already begun to dry in dull, rusty smears. Someone would come tomorrow to clean. A crew Vincent trusted. A service used for messes that couldn’t be scrubbed away with paper towels and bleach.
But tonight, it was just us.
We sat on the back steps of the house, wrapped in a blanket neither of us remembered grabbing. My head rested on Vincent’s shoulder, his hand motionless on my thigh, not claiming, just there. The sky was beginning to bruise with early dawn. That in-between hour. Too late for night. Too early for healing.
I hadn’t cried. Not since the adrenaline passed. Not when I told the officers what Julian had done. Not when I handed over the bloodied knife. Not even when they loaded him into the cruiser with gauze wrapped around his arm and that same hollow, bitter smile still clinging to his lips.
But now—now that it was over—I felt the ache settle into my bones. No longer panic. Just weight.
Vincent hadn’t spoken since I gave my statement. Not once. But he hadn’t left my side either. And that, more than anything, is how I knew he was unraveling.
“I didn’t stop him,” he said finally, voice barely a breath. “Not soon enough.”
I didn’t lift my head. “You got there before I needed saving.”
“I wasn’t supposed to let it happen at all.”
“You didn’t let anything happen. He made his choice. I made mine.”
His jaw clenched beneath my cheek. “I told myself I was protecting you. But the truth is, I was too afraid of breaking the rules I made to see that he never played by them.”
“You were trying to give me space,” I whispered. “But Vincent… I don’t want space. I want you.”
He turned his face slightly, pressing his lips to the crown of my head. “You shouldn’t have had to protect yourself.”
“I did,” I said quietly. “And I did it well.”
He closed his eyes. I felt it in his chest, the way his breath stuttered—his body strong as steel, his soul shaking like a fault line under my hands.
“I watched you fall apart in my arms once,” he said. “And tonight… I watched you stand in your own blood. Do you know how hard that is?”
I finally sat up enough to meet his eyes. “You think you’ve been carrying me, Vincent, but I’ve been carrying you too.”
He looked wrecked. Not from violence. From feeling. From finally, finally letting it in.
“I wanted to fix it all,” he said. “Make it clean. Controlled. Safe.”
“Love doesn’t work that way,” I said. “It’s not clean. It’s not controlled. But it can still be safe.”
His hand came up, thumb brushing beneath my eye like he expected tears. There weren’t any.
“You still want this?” he asked. “Even after tonight?”
I nodded slowly. “Especially after tonight.”
“You almost died.”
“But I didn’t. And I’m not walking away from the man who taught me how to choose for myself.”
He pulled me closer. His mouth found my temple again, then my cheek, then lower—his forehead resting against mine like he was praying.
“I love you,” he whispered. “It scares the shit out of me. But I do.”
I smiled, small and aching and whole. “I know. And I love you. Not in spite of what we’ve survived—because of it.”