Page 71 of Next Level Up
The kind that makes you want to hurt something just so you can feel like you’re in control again.
But there’s nothing to hurt here except me, maybe that’s the point.
I press my forehead to the mirror and stay like that until the water starts to cool. Until my hands stop shaking. Until I can breathe without tasting the panic.
I finally turn the water off and I reach for the towel, I dry off, grab a clean hoodie and head back toward the living room.
Carter’s dozing, half-slumped over. Haven’s curled up with a blanket but looks up when I walk in. She doesn’t say anything. Just reaches out and hooks her pinky around mine. I don’t let go.
After the movie ends and the screen fades to black, I stay. I don’t move when Carter dozes off again mid-phone scroll. I don’t move when Haven starts tracing shapes on my arm like she’s sketching her thoughts straight into my skin.
She thinks I’m not paying attention. But then she whispers. “Tate … do you ever wonder what happens if this ends?”
“You mean us?”
She nods.
I let the silence stretch for a moment. “Yeah. I think about it. But then I remember how it feels when you look at me. I know I’d burn the fucking world down before I let it.”
She doesn’t speak, but just moves closer and pulls my arm tighter around her waist.
Sometimes I wonder how long this will last, more now that she brought it up.
She looks at me like I’m something holy and Carter always talks like I’m still worth saving. What happens when she realize I’m not built to last? What happens when I can’t keep my darkness from bleeding into her softness? I stare at the ceiling and wonder if loving someone this hard means I’m destined to destroy them.
Pulled away from my thoughts by her sleeping, even breaths All I can think is that people like me don’t get happy endings. We get warning labels. We get told to stay away from soft things.
Haven is softness weaponized. She’s hope wrapped in a killstreak. I stare at her for a long time before I force myself to sleep.
22
Carter
Ilay there for a minute, watching herassoft golden light spills in through the curtains, her hair fanned out across the pillow beside me.
The tiny crease between her brows that only disappears when I brush my fingers down her cheek and she subconsciously nuzzles into it.
God, I love her.
I slide out of bed quietly, grab a hoodie off the back of her desk chair, and quickly go barefoot into the kitchen. There’s a little leftover pancake mix in her fridge from the last grocery run, so I get to work.
By the time Haven shuffles out I’ve got a plate stacked high with pancakes and a pan of sizzling bacon going on the stove.
She freezes in the doorway, rubbing her eyes. “Are you seriously cooking again?”
I glance over my shoulder. “Thought I’d feed you before your next emotional spiral.”
She groans, flopping onto a bar stool like she’s still exhausted. “You’re never gonna let me live it down, are you?”
“Nope,” I say with a grin, sliding her a cup of coffee. “But I’ll keep feeding you through it.”
She takes a sip, then looks up at me over the rim of her up. There’s something different in her eyes now—softer, but weighted. When she sets it down, I can already tell the question’s coming.
“Hey,” she says gently. “Last night… when Tate got up mid-movie. Was he okay?”
I pause. I know what she’s really asking and it deserves the kind of answer that doesn’t come with a light hearted joke.
I lean back against the counter, folding my arms. “He gets overwhelmed sometimes,” I say. “But he won’t say it half the time. Not even to me.”
