Olivia POV
Sebastian lay beside me, the weight of his confession still hanging in the air like thick fog. The room was quiet—too quiet—except for the soft hitch of his breath and the rapid beat of my heart as I stared at the boy who had just handed me every shattered piece of himself.
His head rested against the pillow, eyes distant, like he was still lost in that nightmare of a memory. His knuckles were raw from gripping the edge of the sink earlier. His ribs were sore—he hadn't told me, but I'd seen the way he flinched when I brushed my hand too low on his side. And when I asked what happened, he'd tried to lie.
But he couldn't lie anymore.
Not tonight.
Not after everything he told me.
"My father wants perfection," he'd said, voice barely above a whisper. "A perfect house. A perfect son. A perfect daughter. And when we're not… when I mess up… he reminds me."
He didn't have to say how.
I'd seen the bruises.
He told me he fought with some, I wanted to believe him. I have seen the panic attack he had got near the library and he has just told me it was nothing.
But now… now I knew the truth. And it felt like something inside me had cracked wide open.
I turned to face him in the dim light, my fingers trembling as I gently reached out and brushed the hair from his forehead. He didn't look at me. Just stared up at the ceiling like it held answers he was too scared to say out loud.
"I'm not strong, Liv," he whispered, so broken it tore right through me. "I act like I am. I smile at school. I joke around. I keep my head down when he's angry. I take every hit for Evelyn. But it's not enough. I can't protect her. I can't stop him."
"You do," I whispered. "You do protect her."
His lips trembled. "Not always. I try, but sometimes… he still gets close. He still scares her. And I hate that she looks at me like I'm the only thing between her and him. Like I'm her shield. Because I'm breaking, Liv. And if I break—what happens to her?"
I couldn't speak.
My throat felt tight, like it was closing up with every word he said.
I slid closer until our foreheads touched, until I could feel his breath mixing with mine. I wrapped my arms around him slowly, carefully, like he was something precious and fragile. Because he was.
And he finally let go.
His body trembled as the sobs came—quiet at first, then ragged, desperate. He buried his face in the curve of my neck, clutching the back of my shirt like he needed to hold onto something real.
"I'm sorry," he whispered again and again. "I'm so sorry."
"For what?" I whispered back, holding him tighter. "For surviving?"
That's what he was doing. Surviving.
Every day.
Every hour.
He was surviving a war no one could see—fighting battles alone in a house that looked perfect from the outside.
And I hated that I didn't know sooner.
I hated that I hadn't seen how deep the pain ran.
But more than anything—I hated that he thought he had to go through it alone.
I pulled back just enough to look at him, brushing the tears from his cheeks with shaking hands. "Listen to me, Seb. You're not weak. You're not broken. You've been carrying too much for too long. But you don't have to anymore. You have me now."
His eyes met mine, wide and glassy. "But what if I mess this up too? What if I'm too much?"
"You're not," I said fiercely. "You've never been too much. You're not something to be fixed or hidden. You're yours. And I want all of you. Even the parts you think are too dark. Especially those."
His voice broke again, quieter this time, like the weight of the truth was wearing him down from the inside out.
"There were times…" he swallowed hard, like the words physically hurt to say, "when I didn't want to exist anymore. I didn't want to feel anything. I just wanted it to stop. All of it."
My breath caught.
He didn't look at me—he couldn't. His eyes stayed fixed on the ceiling, as if it would crack open and swallow the memory before he had to say it aloud.
"I tried, Liv. I tried to leave this world."
Everything inside me stilled.
His voice trembled, but he kept going. "I was so tired. Of hiding the bruises. Of pretending Evelyn didn't hear the screams. Of pretending I was okay. But every time I tried—every single time—I saw her face. Evelyn's. And I couldn't do it. Because if I left, he'd break her too. And I can't let that happen. I can't be the reason she's alone with him."
Tears blurred my vision. I gripped his hand tighter under the covers, like I could anchor him here with me, in this moment, in this world.
And then, softer—like the memory was unspooling from somewhere deep inside—he whispered, "One day, I found myself at a park. I didn't even remember walking there. I just wanted to escape."
He paused, and something shifted in his gaze, like warmth flickering through the cracks of something frozen.
"That's when I saw her."
His eyes flicked to mine for a second—just a second—but it was enough.
"A girl with blue eyes," he continued, voice barely above a breath. ""A girl with blue eyes," he continued, voice barely above a breath. "I was Sitting on a swing with tear-stained cheeks. and then I saw her coming to me and she sits beside me. Something in me moved. Something pulled me toward her. She looked towards me."
A tiny, almost-smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
"'Hi,'" he said, like he was still hearing it in his memory. "I blinked. It was the first word I'd spoken in weeks.
And then it hit me.
My heart tripped over itself.
That park. That swing.
The boy who sat alone, eyes shadowed with something I couldn't name at the time.
"I remember that," I whispered.
Sebastian's brows pulled together faintly.
"I was alone too," I said, voice soft as I stared at him. "My parents were away again, and my Mehusa took me out for ice cream. I saw you sitting there, and I don't know why, but I just… I felt like you needed someone. I didn't know who you were, or what you were going through—I was just a little girl with sticky fingers and a melting cone—but I walked up to you because I felt alone too."
He didn't speak, but his eyes shimmered.
"You didn't say much," I added. "Just looked at me like I didn't scare you. I remember thinking you looked like one of those quiet kids from storybooks. Sad and silent, but not mean."
He gave a shaky laugh at that, and I smiled faintly through the tears.
"I offered you my ice cream," I said. "You didn't take it."
"I remember," he said, voice thick.
"See?" I nudged his hand gently. "Even back then… you healed something."
He blinked. "What?"
I turned to him, leaning in until our foreheads touched, his breath mingling with mine in the quiet between us.
"Do you know what you did that day?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper. "You think you were breaking. But you weren't."
His brows pulled in, confused. "What do you mean?"
I closed my eyes, grounding myself in the feel of his skin against mine. "You spoke to me. After weeks of silence. One word. One breath. You looked at me, and you chose to speak."
He blinked, like he didn't understand how that could possibly matter—but I saw it all so clearly now. That tiny thread connecting who we were to who we are.
"And maybe it didn't seem like anything to you," I went on, voice shaking, "but it mattered. You found your voice when everything in your world was trying to take it away. That wasn't the end of something, Seb. That was the beginning."
He stared at me like he didn't know what to do with the truth I was laying in his hands.
"That little boy on the bench," I whispered, "he didn't just survive. He reached out—he chose connection. Even if it was small, even if it was messy. You didn't let the pain take everything from you. You held on to something."
His lips parted, like maybe he wanted to disagree—but nothing came out. Just the flicker of emotion across his face, raw and real.
"You may not have known it," I said gently, brushing my thumb along his cheek, "but you saved someone that day, too."
His eyes locked on mine.
"Me," I said. "I was lonely in a way I didn't even have words for yet. And then you looked at me like I wasn't invisible."
His breath caught, and he blinked fast, like he was trying to keep something from spilling over.
"So no," I murmured, "you're not worthless. You never were. You've been saving lives—quietly, selflessly—even while you were drowning."
He turned his head slightly, like he couldn't bear for me to see the tears building in his lashes. But I saw them. I saw him—every broken piece, every scar he tried to hide.
"You stayed for Evelyn," I said. "You carried pain no child should ever have to carry. And still… you have this quiet gentleness in you. You still love."
"I don't feel like I do," he said hoarsely. "I feel… empty."
"Then let me remind you," I said, voice trembling. "You're not empty, Sebastian. You're full—of strength, of grief, of so much love you don't know where to put it."
I pressed my forehead against his again, sealing the space between us. "You spoke to me once, when you didn't think you could. Now let me speak when you can't."
He didn't answer. He just pulled me closer, like he finally understood what it meant to be held without condition.
And the silence that followed didn't feel hollow or cold.
It felt like healing.
Like home.
Like a promise neither of us had the words for—but both of us meant with everything we had left.