Page 301 of Iced Up Love: Part Two
The pressure. The exposure. The fact that there is no going back now. And something inside me shifts.
Because I know, deep down, they’re not backing down.
Not one of them. Not from me. Not from us. Not from this. And for the first time since everything started to unravel… I realize something else.
Neither am I.
I let out a slow breath, my fingers tightening slightly in the fabric of the couch as I lean back, letting my head rest against it.
I’m tired.
Not physically.
Not even emotionally in the way I was before.
Just… tired of hiding. Of flinching. Of feeling like I need to stay small to survive something that’s already happened.
Because it did happen. And I lived through it.
I survived it and I’m still here. Stronger than I was. Stronger than I ever thought I could be. Because of them.
Because they didn’t let me disappear into it. Because they pulled me back. Because they’re still here, still choosing me, still standing beside me.
Jackson mutters something under his breath, dragging a hand through his hair as he turns back toward us, his jaw tight.
“This is getting out of control,” he says.
“It was always going to,” Zach replies quietly.
“That doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
“You don’t,” Elijah says without turning from the window. “You just have to handle it.”
Jackson exhales sharply, like he wants to argue but doesn’t have the energy to push it further right now.
They start talking again.
PR.
Media.
What’s next. What they need to do. What they should do. The words blur together after a moment. Not because they don’t matter. But because something else rises up inside me, clearer. Stronger. More certain.
I push up from the couch before I can overthink it.
“Stop.”
The word cuts through them cleanly. All three of them go still and turn to me.
I can feel the weight of their attention instantly, the way it settles over me, sharp and focused and ready.
“I think I should come to the home game this weekend.”
The words land. Hard. Immediate.
Elijah turns fully toward me now, and I see it, that instinctive reaction, that immediate, absolutenoforming in his eyes before he even says it.
I don’t let him.
