Page 33 of Beautiful When He Breaks

Eli keeps looking at me before he lets out a slow breath and nods once, but there’s something in his face that’s searching, and it makes me uneasy in the worst way. “I know I fucked a lot up,” he says.

My body tenses before I can help it. “Eli, you already—”

“No, let me say it right.” He drops his gaze to his hands for a second, then lifts it again. “I know I did. I know I was a shit friend to you while everything with Celeste was happening. I know saying thank you now doesn’t erase any of that. I just…” He trails off and rubs his palm over the back of his neck, a gesture so familiar it hurts. “I don’t want you thinking I’m taking you for granted again.”

“I don’t think that,” I say quietly.

That’s true and not true in equal measure. I don’t think he’s taking me for granted now, but I did think it for months before Mila. I thought a lot worse than that, usually late at night when my phone was in my hand, and I hated myself enough to answer messages I should’ve ignored.

He leans a little closer, forearms on his thighs. “I really am grateful for you, Jules.”

He’s looking at me now with his tired blue eyes open and honest. I love him; that’s the constant. What shifts is how impossible it gets to sit here quietly while he gives me these moments that feel almost like something I could mistake for more if I were the kind of idiot who still believed in miracles.

I have to break eye contact before I do something reckless, like lean in and kiss him. Instead, I glance toward the bassinet. Mila is flat on her back, swaddled in a pale sleeper with tiny yellow ducks on it; one cheek turned toward us, dark lashes resting against soft skin. Even asleep, she looks faintly offended by existence. I smile at that because it’s easier than dealing with the pressure building in my chest.

“She’s lucky,” I say, buying myself a second.

Eli’s voice goes even softer. “I think I’m the lucky one.”

I look back at him and instantly regret it, because he means that, too. He means it in the terrifyingly sincere way that says he’s already rearranged his soul around her and knows it. I force a breath into my lungs and sit back a little because proximity is starting to suck.

Eli shifts back farther on the mattress, propping himself against the headboard now, long legs stretched out in front of him. “You good?”

There’s the question again. It would be funny if it didn’t make my spine lock every time.

“Yeah,” I say, because I’m getting very fucking good at saying that.

He studies me for one beat too long. “You’ve been off tonight.”

I should’ve known he’d notice eventually. He notices more now. Or maybe I’m just letting him again.

“Long day,” I tell him.

“That all?”

No. Not remotely. It was a long day. It was also a long week. It was also another evening of fielding messages I deleted without answering and reminding myself that surviving something ugly in secret doesn’t make me strong. But sure, long day is technically true.

“Mostly,” I say.

He doesn’t buy it. I can see that in the slight narrowing of his eyes, the way his mouth almost opens and then closes again. But after babyproofing and lawyer calls, and the fragile normalcy we’ve been building one weird day at a time, he just looks at me with concern he hasn’t figured out how to hide and lets it rest.

“If you ever wanna actually talk,” he says quietly, “I’m here.”

The offer is genuine. That’s what kills me.

For one awful second, I nearly say it. Not everything, but enough to stop this ache of carrying it alone while helping him carry his. Enough to let him in on the fact that whatever happened to him isn’t the only violation sitting in this house pretending to be manageable.

Then Mila sighs in her sleep, turning her face into the swaddle, and the moment passes because the room is full of too much innocence for me to drag my filth into it.

I smile in a way that probably looks more tired than convincing and say, “I know.”

He keeps watching me, then I stand before I can sink any deeper into this bed, this room, and this version of our lives that keeps brushing too close to something I want and can’t have.

“I should head out,” I say. “You need sleep.”

Eli glances at the clock and makes a face. “That’s generous of you. I’m pretty sure sleep and I broke up last week.”

“Yeah, well, you should still call her and see if she’s willing to reconcile.”