Chapter Seventeen What We Couldn’t Name
1222 Words
It started with jealousy.
Or maybe it started the moment I saw her for the first time in that elevator—when something in me leaned forward before I even knew her name.
But that day, it burned.
Jace.
With a bouquet of calla lilies. Standing way too close to her, looking at her like he knew her heart already.
I heard bits of what he said from where I sat across the conference table. Something about her laugh. Something about her resilience.
I didn’t hear her response—because she didn’t give one.
Didn’t need to.
The ache in my chest had already bloomed.
I tried to focus on the meeting. On the slides, the jokes, the usual chaos of bad pancit and colder approvals. But my eyes kept dragging back to them. Not to her. To him. To the way he stood like he thought he had a chance.
My hand tightened around my pen.
Later, the team dragged us out to KTV.
Someone handed her the mic like it was a dare. “Mara, sing something sad. That’s your thing, right?”
She didn’t argue. She never did when she was tired.
And when she sang “Is It Too Late?”, the room shifted.
It wasn’t her voice that silenced the laughter. It was the way she sang it—like the words weren’t lyrics, but confessions. Like she’d lived every line and was still bleeding from it.
When she sat back down, Jace smiled.
I didn’t.
I couldn’t.
I didn’t even look at her until much later—when someone made a joke and I used the distraction to slip beside her, quietly enough that only she noticed.
“I’ll take you home,” I said.
She didn’t argue. She just nodded.
The car ride was quiet.
Too quiet.
She rested her head against the window, half-asleep, and I kept my eyes on the road, jaw tight.
Every mile, I kept replaying it.
Jace, with his flowers.
Her voice, trembling in that song.
The fact that I had no right to feel this jealous—and no way to stop it.
When we got to her place, I should’ve dropped her off and left.
But I didn’t.
“I’ll make sure you’re okay,” I said, already helping her out of the car.
Inside, I helped her take off her heels. I helped her steady herself without a word.
She handed me a glass of water like we’d done this before. Like we were something.
I stared at her for a moment.
Then I said it.
“I didn’t like seeing you with him.”
She blinked at me, confused. Her eyes still glassy from the alcohol, her shoulders still holding some invisible weight. “Elián…”
“I’m not ready to be anyone’s boyfriend,” I said. The words hurt coming out. But I had to be honest. “But I don’t want anyone else holding your hand.”
It wasn’t romantic. It wasn’t right. But it was real.
I moved closer. Close enough to see the freckles on her cheek. Close enough to hear her breath catch.
“I don’t want to lose this,” I told her. “Even if it’s messy. Even if I can’t label it.”
For a second, I thought she’d push me away.
She didn’t.
She just looked at me with something tired and hopeful in her eyes.
Then she nodded. Once.
“Okay.”
And maybe that’s when it really began—not with clarity, not with clean lines, but with all the things we couldn’t say out loud.
The ache.
The need.
The fear.
And still, her “okay” felt like the most dangerous thing I’d ever been trusted with.
She didn’t move away.
Her fingers trembled a little when she set the glass down, but she didn’t look away either.
So I reached out—slowly—touched the side of her face with a tenderness that felt foreign to my own hands.
“Tell me to stop,” I whispered.
She didn’t.
She stepped forward instead, closing the space between us, her breath warm against my collarbone. Her fingers slipped into mine like they’d always known where to go.
When I kissed her, it wasn’t careful.
It was years of ache unspoken.
It was grief, and longing, and everything we never had the language for.
Her mouth opened beneath mine, soft and aching. She tasted like wine and something sweeter. Her hands were in my hair, my shirt, the back of my neck—pulling me closer like she needed to know I was real.
I backed her into the bedroom, every movement slow but certain, like we both knew what we were doing and had waited too long to pretend otherwise.
When she fell onto the bed, she pulled me with her.
Clothes came off one by one—quietly. No rush. Just skin against skin, breath against breath. My mouth followed the curve of her shoulder, the inside of her thigh, the places that made her tremble.
She pulled me to her, and when I sank into her, it wasn’t careful.
It was raw. Real. Like something we’d both been trying to deny for too long.
She gasped—her hands gripping my shoulders, her thighs tightening around my waist. Her body arched to meet me like she’d been waiting for this exact moment. Like every breath, every tremor, had been leading here.
I moved inside her slowly at first, but deep—each thrust deliberate, aching, like I was learning her from the inside out.
“Elián,” she breathed, her voice cracking on my name.
I buried my face in her neck, tasting the soft skin just below her ear, the place that made her tremble. She clung to me like I was the only thing keeping her from falling apart—and maybe I was, because I felt just as wrecked.
We moved together like we already knew each other’s rhythms. Her hips rose to meet mine, her nails dragging down my back, her moans soft and broken—like she wasn’t trying to be quiet anymore.
And f**k, I didn’t want her to be.
I wanted to hear every sound she made. Every whisper. Every cry. I wanted to be the reason she unraveled.
Our bodies were chaos and prayer—grief turned into need, and need into something dangerously close to love.
I kissed her like I was afraid I’d never get the chance again. Because maybe I wouldn’t. Maybe this was the beginning and the end all at once.
She came with a shudder, crying out as her body clenched around me. And I lost it right after—buried deep inside her, breathing her name like it was the only truth I knew.
When it was over, I stayed. My chest against hers. Her heartbeat echoing into mine.
We didn’t say a word.
We didn’t need to.
Because everything we’d tried so hard not to feel had been spoken in the way we held each other. In the way we broke.
And maybe it wasn’t love yet.
But it was something real. Something too deep to take back.
Something that would ruin us if we let it.
And I already knew—I would.
- Writer
