Chapter 48 CHAPTER 48
YAEL
I didn’t even make it to my bed before the knock started, sharp and desperate and completely unmistakable, and I stood there staring at my door like it had personally betrayed me because I knew who it was without asking, because no one else knocked like that, like the world would end if I didn’t open it, and when I finally did, Knox was standing there with bruised knuckles, a split lip, eyes red and wild and wrecked, breathing like he’d run here.
“Yael,” he said immediately, stepping forward.
“No,” I said just as fast, holding the door with my body. “No, you don’t get to just—”
“Please,” he cut in, voice cracking just slightly, just enough to make my chest ache. “Please don’t shut the door.”
I froze.
“I messed up,” he went on quickly, words tumbling over each other like he was afraid I’d disappear if he paused. “I know I messed up, I know that was bad, but I couldn’t stand the way he looked at you like I was— like I was nothing, like you were something I stole, and I lost it, okay? I lost it.”
“You always lose it,” I whispered, anger and hurt tangling so tightly I couldn’t tell which was which.
“I know,” he said, nodding hard. “I know. And I hate that part of me. I swear I do. But you need to know something— I stopped.”
I laughed bitterly. “Congratulations.”
“No,” he said, stepping closer anyway, hands lifted like he was approaching something fragile. “I stopped because you asked me to. Because you yelled my name and everything else just— went quiet.”
I swallowed.
“I’ve never stopped for anyone,” he continued, voice lower now, softer, raw. “Not coaches, not security, not threats, not consequences. You said my name and I stopped.”
“That doesn’t make it okay,” I said, even as my voice shook.
“I know,” he said immediately. “I’m not asking you to say it’s okay. I’m asking you not to walk away from me.”
Silence stretched between us, thick and heavy and full of everything we weren’t saying, and I hated how much I wanted to step into him, hated how my body still leaned forward even when my heart was hurting.
“You scared me,” I whispered.
His face crumpled just a little. “I would never hurt you.”
“I know,” I said, tears burning behind my eyes. “That’s the worst part.”
He reached out, hesitated, then dropped his hand. “I’ll do better,” he said quietly. “I swear to you, Yael. I’ll walk away next time. I’ll bite my tongue. I’ll take a punch and not throw one back if that’s what you need.”
“That’s not what I want,” I snapped.
“Then tell me what you want,” he pleaded, stepping closer until there was barely space to breathe between us. “Tell me how to love you without breaking everything around us.”
My chest rose and fell too fast. “I want you to stop fighting my brother.”
He flinched. “I tried.”
“You didn’t,” I said. “You provoked him.”
“I tried after,” he admitted, frustration lacing his tone. “And he wouldn’t let it go.”
“That doesn’t mean you get to—”
“I know,” he cut in again, softer now. “I know.”
He looked so tired suddenly, like the fight had finally drained out of him and left only the boy underneath, the one who showed up to my dorm late at night just to apologize, the one who kissed me like he meant it, the one who asked me to be his girlfriend like it was the bravest thing he’d ever done.
“I don’t want to lose you,” he said.
I closed my eyes.
“You won’t,” I whispered, hating myself a little for saying it.
His breath hitched. “Does that mean—”
“It means I’m mad,” I said quickly. “It means I’m hurt. It means you embarrassed me and scared me and made things worse with Aaron.”
“I know.”
“But it also means,” I continued, voice breaking, “that I don’t want to break up with you.”
He exhaled like he’d been holding his breath for hours. “Thank God.”
I opened my eyes and glared at him. “Don’t thank God yet.”
He almost smiled.
“Come here,” I muttered, grabbing the front of his hoodie before I could stop myself.
He didn’t waste a second. His hands came to my waist like they belonged there, careful but desperate, like he was holding something precious and breakable at the same time, and when his mouth met mine, it wasn’t wild or rushed, it was slow and aching and full of apology, his lips moving against mine like he was saying sorry without words.
I kissed him back before my brain could protest, fingers tightening in his hoodie, heart pounding because this was exactly what I was trying not to do and exactly what I wanted all at once.
He murmured my name against my mouth, reverent, ruined.
And I kissed him again.