CHAPTER 96

CHAPTER 96
You don't have to say anything," Tony murmured, his voice fighting to be heard over the wind. "I just wanted to sit with you.".

The roof of the youth center creaked under our weight as we sat on its rim, legs dangling over concrete and evening. Below, the gentle hum of kids drifted up, like a quilted lullaby. The sun was setting behind the horizon, slowly and in gold, painting the clouds in watercolor strokes. Movie magic. I could almost imagine the whir of my camera.

"I do want to talk," I said after a moment. "That's the thing. I always want to talk when I'm with you."

He chuckled quietly, gaze still on the horizon. "You say that like it's an offense."

"Isn't it?" I said, playing the edge of danger. "You're the guy I'm supposed to run from. Every time we do this—talk, share the same air—I forget why I was afraid in the first place."

He looked over at me then, face half in darkness, half in the vanishing sun. "Maybe because it wasn't about fear anymore a long, long time ago."

I didn't respond. Because he was right.

For a moment, we just sat there and watched the sun drop lower, a slow dissolve. I let myself feel the pain, really feel it. It was the sort of stillness that got to you, the sort that asked nothing of you except to be present. No theatrics. No acting. Just quiet that felt like understanding.

"I got the job," I said finally.

Tony finally turned to face me, and for once, his eyes didn't flash with possessive fire or challenge. Only calmness. "The one at The Globe?"

"Yes." I shifted the strap of my camera bag. "Dream internship. Everything I worked for. Everything my dad. everything he believed I could do."

He did not say congratulations. He didn't say anything for a moment, but just stared at me with this peace I'd never ever heard in his voice before.

Then he spoke. "You don't need a title to be what you already are."

I blinked. "What?"

"You're already a storyteller, Mac. The paper, the title, even the city—it's all just paint on the walls. You could be in the middle of nowhere and still get something that counts."

Something caught in my heart. I hadn't expected him to say that. I hadn't expected him to notice.

"I used to chase the byline," I admitted. "Believed if I could just get my name in print on something big enough, I could finally shake off the feeling of being a ghost with a camera. But now…"

Tony furrowed his brow. "Now?"

I took from my bag a photo—an actual print, black-and-white, matte finish. Not protest or politics. No violence. No scars.

Tony's literacy class little girl. Big grin with a gap-toothed front tooth gripped to her chest too-big-for-her-hands book. Light from behind her, streaming through the window, catches on curls at the crown of her head like a halo. She is. proud. Alive. Seen.

"I took this last week," I told her. "I didn't have any plans. None of it was taken for anything that would become a story. I just. observed."

He treated the picture cautiously, as if it were glass. Studied it. His eyes didn't flick across it the way people do with pictures. He stared—like he was inside the photo, listening to the silence between the clicks of the camera.

"That's your story," he growled finally.

I swallowed. "Yeah. I think it is."

He handed it back, my fingers touching his. And it was not touch—I felt closure. Or the start of something softer.

"It wasn't about the city," I said aloud, the truth hitting me in the face like a burst of air. "Or the job. Or even my dad's legacy. It was about. this. About seeing people. Feeling here. Like I belong somewhere that isn't haunted.".

Tony sat silently. Sat with it. Sat with me.

"You ruined me," he spoke out. "That day—when your photo went viral—you shattered everything I thought I was."

I braced, preparing.

"But," he went on, stepping around to face me, "you also made me deal with what I never would have. Who I really was beneath the jersey. What I did when nobody was around."

My throat was tight. "I didn't mean to ruin you."

"I know." His voice was rough. "And I didn't mean to scare you."

We locked eyes for a long, heavy moment, the weight of our past hanging between us like fog. It no longer strangled me. It simply lingered.

He turned away from me again, toward the horizon. "Wells told me what he did."

I prepared myself.

"I did not instruct him to leak the file," Tony said. "Didn't find out until it was already loose. But I did not stop him either. That's my fault."

I took a deep breath. "I think you're telling the truth."

He nodded, his jaw tightening. "Thatch wanted to hurt you. Believed pain would cure all."

"And you?" I asked.

He hesitated. "I wanted to possess you. Make you report to me. But that changed the second you quit running."

The wind grew stronger. I hugged my jacket tighter to me, uncertain if I had it wrapped around my skin or my heart.

"You scare me sometimes," I admitted. "Because you know where I break."

"And you scare me," he said, voice rough. "Because you see me even when I don't want to be seen."

I glanced over at him then. Not the Tony Zacks of scandal websites. Not the broken football star or the threat everyone whispered about. Just the kid sitting beside me in the dying light, watching the very last of it go away like everything does.

"I don't know what happens next," I said.

"Me neither," he said. "But I want to find out. With you."

I should have been scared of what that would mean. Of how messy and complicated and knotted it might get. But all I felt was. still. Grounded. As if perhaps this was the place I'd been attempting to capture all this time—not a city, not a news story. But home.

I tucked the photo of Mia away in my bag and leaned over just a little, so that my shoulder could brush his.

No kiss. No vows.

Only presence.

Only truth.

And the sun's final setting behind a horizon that no longer looked like a finish line—but a fresh border.