Chapter 159

Chapter 159

LAYLA'S POV

The air is crisp on the back porch. Clean. Cool. Unforgiving in that way early morning air can be when you’re not sure who you are anymore.

I’m wearing one of his shirts underneath the hoodie he'd bought, sleeves hanging past my fingers, fabric brushing the tops of my thighs.

I stare out past the porch rail, watching the steam curl from my coffee like it’s trying to escape too. Everything’s so still it doesn’t feel real. The kind of quiet that doesn’t offer peace, just makes it easier to hear your own thoughts. And God...mine won’t shut up.

I woke up to a bath already run, the water still warm. The smell was familiar, the softness of it, the intimacy of being known like that. He’d left the door cracked, and I sat there until the water cooled around me.

He made sandwiches too....peanut butter and jelly. He's in the other room now. I can hear him moving around...light steps, soft creaks on old wood. He’s giving me space.

I love him. God, I love him. I feel it like a bruise every time I breathe. Like my ribs might snap under the weight of it.

But I can’t hold his gaze. I’ve tried all morning, I really have. He looks at me like I’m something breakable and precious, and I...I just feel broken. He loves me like he still sees light inside me, and I don’t know how. I don’t know why.

He said we’d get there. I remember the way he said it, low and steady, voice like an oath. And I want to believe him. I want to believe in that “there.” But where even is that? And how the hell do we reach it with all this mess between us?

I know I'll fall apart again. Not now...now I’m numb, suspended in this dull gray nothing, but later. Maybe in the shower. Maybe while brushing my teeth. Maybe the second he says something kind in that voice that cuts me open. I’ll combust again like I did last night. And he’ll be there, like always. And that terrifies me.

Because I don’t want him to always have to be.

I want to be whole. For him. For us. I want a love that’s not constantly clawing its way out of the dark. A relationship that doesn’t feel like we’re both holding our breath, waiting for me to crack. One where he isn’t scanning me like a time bomb and I’m not measuring every word so I don’t detonate.

I want clean. I want safe. I want him to fucking rest.

But how do I give him that when I don’t even like who I am right now?

My throat aches with the weight of words I don’t know how to say. Words like I’m scared and I’m so, so tired. I sip the coffee. It’s lukewarm now. I barely taste it.

The porch door creaks open behind me. I don’t turn. He doesn’t speak, just steps up behind me. I feel the heat of him before anything else, like the sun rising slow across my skin. He wraps his arms around me from behind, his cheek rests against the top of my head.

But I feel the tremble in my spine. I feel the fracture forming at the edge of my resolve.

He points somewhere to the left, toward where the land dips slightly. Says there’s a creek down that way and maybe we should go there later. He’ll pack more of the sandwiches.

I follow the line of his gaze, let my eyes trace the soft swaying grass, but I don’t really see it. I feel his fingers on my chin a second later, angling my face upward until I’m looking at him again. He’s smiling, soft and teasing, like he’s trying to hold everything together with just that crooked grin.

“You keep that up,” he murmurs, “and I’ll forget what color your eyes are.”

I blink. Once...twice.

“Adam…”

Just his name. That’s all I can manage. But it’s enough. He hears it...the shift, the tone, the tremor, and I see it hit him. His jaw tenses like he’s bracing for something, some kind of storm he knows he can’t outrun.

“No,” he says quickly, voice sharp in the quiet. “No. Whatever it is you’re about to say, I don’t want to hear it.”

I take a step back, not from him, but from the weight of all of it. “ This isn't healthy,” I whisper.

“This?” he gestures between us, like even the air crackling between our bodies counts as evidence. “This is real. It’s messy, yeah, but we’ve been doing okay. Last night—”

He closes the space between us, eyes burning with desperation. “ You’re still processing things. That’s normal. We can work through it. Together.”

“How?” I ask, almost yelling it. “How do I learn not to be codependent if I’m clinging to the one thing I’m most attached to?”

He stares at me, lips parting, searching for words that don’t come.

I shake my head, stepping back again.

“What are you saying?” he asks, voice rougher now. “Are you… are you ending this? Because that's not-”

“No.” I shut my eyes for a second. “I just… I want to be better. I want this to be different for once. Not another reckless, fucked up thing I bury myself in and call love.”

“We were figuring it out,” he argues, his voice breaking. “We were doing okay before last night. It wasn’t perfect, but it was good, Layla.”

I look up at him, eyes stinging... decide I might as well get it all out there.“I tried to get pregnant.”

He freezes.

Just like that, the breath leaves him. His brows furrow, confusion slicing through the pain on his face. “What?”

“It wasn’t planned,” I say quickly. “It was stupid. I didn’t even think it through. I just...after the thing with Olivia, I panicked. I was scared you’d leave so I stopped taking the pill for a couple of days.”

His mouth opens. Closes. Nothing comes out.

I keep going before I lose the nerve. “I started taking them again once I came to my senses. It was just, just a thought, a very stupid one! But even the fact that I had it scares the hell out of me.”

He's processing that.

“I hate this,” I say, voice raw. “I love you so much, Adam. So fucking much. But I hate this version of me. I hate that I even considered that. That I let fear and insecurities make decisions for me.”

He’s still silent. Still staring at me like I just changed shape in front of him.

“Do you see now?” I whisper. “Do you get it? Why I need space? Why I need to figure out my shit before I end up dragging you into something you didn’t ask for? Something neither of us is ready for?”