Page 118 of Fall Into Me
The words landed between us with a truth neither of us could avoid.
Something unreadable flashed across his face then. Regret. Affection. Fear. Maybe all three. And in that moment, sitting barefoot on his office floor and staring at the man who was trying desperately not to let me into a world that had already claimed him, I realized something that would shape the rest of my life.
He was never going to keep me out.
He was always going to be the one who taught me how to survive it.
The memory leaves me smiling before I even realize it. It starts small, just the soft pull of my mouth, but it grows anyway, fed by years and fire and all the impossible roads that somehow led us here.
Funny.
He tried so hard to keep me out. Out of the war. Out of the danger. Out of his world. Out of him.
Every warning, every sharp word, every time he told me I didn’t belong, that I was too soft, too young, too full of dreams for a place built on blood and silence.
And all he really did was walk me home.
Not away from the fire.
Through it.
He taught me where to step. When to duck. How to breathe when everything was burning. How to survive without losing myself in the process.
I glance sideways at him. At the man who once looked at me like I was something fragile he was afraid to touch. Now he looks at me like I’m something rare he refuses to lose.
Jon notices. He always notices.
He nudges my knee lightly with his own. “You smiling about something dangerous?”
His voice is teasing, but there’s warmth under it, a quiet awareness of everything we’ve survived together and everything we’ve almost lost.
“Always,” I reply softly.
It’s the truth.
He laughs, low and easy, the kind of laugh he only gives when he’s truly at peace. Then he shifts closer, one arm sliding around my shoulders and pulling me into his side like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Like this is where I have always belonged.
I rest my head against his shoulder without thinking, feeling the solid steadiness of him beneath my cheek. His heartbeat is slow and strong and real.
Alive.
We sit there in comfortable silence as the sun sinks lower, spilling gold and crimson and soft lavender across the sky. Theclouds catch fire for a moment before fading into dusk, and the light wraps around us like something sacred.
There is no gunfire. No alarms. No orders. Just quiet. Just breath. Just us.
I think about everything we didn’t get. We didn’t get a simple beginning. We didn’t get easy love. We didn’t get a story without scars. We didn’t meet in a coffee shop. We didn’t fall in love in safe places. We didn’t get promises without blood behind them.
We got captivity and secrets and fear. We got almost losing each other more times than I can count. We got nights where survival was the only goal.
And somehow, through all of that, we still chose each other. Every time.
We didn’t get a fairytale.
We got something better.
We got honesty. We got resilience. We got a love forged in fire and steadied by trust. We got each other.
And this time, for the first time in my life, we aren’t running. We aren’t hiding. We aren’t waiting for the next disaster. We’re falling hand in hand, watching the future unfold in front of us like an open road instead of a battlefield.
And we get to choose what comes next.
