Maya took a deep breath, her chest tightening as she looked at him. Seeing Damien like this—so raw, so exposed—shattered something inside her.
She wanted to reach out, to hold him, to tell him it was okay, that everything would be fine. She wanted to shield him from the weight of his own regrets.
But she didn’t. Not yet. This moment demanded more than comfort.
They needed this conversation. They needed honesty.
Because if he could lay himself bare—every fear, every regret, every vulnerable fragment of his heart—then she owed him the same.
She owed herself the same.
Her hands curled at her sides, trembling as she fought the instinct to shield him from the pain.
She would speak. She would confront the truth. She had to—because they couldn’t move forward while the hardest things remain
