The rain had quieted to a distant memory by the time Max leaned against the car door, letting the night press in around him. The air still smelled like wet pavement and unresolved tension. He hadn't moved in minutes, still trying to work through the silence that had settled between them like fog.
Inside the car, Althea was asleep. Her head rested at an awkward angle against the seatbelt, one arm curled close to her chest, and a strand of her hair clung stubbornly to her cheek. Her features were soft in sleep, her mouth slightly parted. She looked nothing like the storm of arguments and accusations from earlier. She just looked tired.
Max slowly opened the door and leaned in, his movements cautious. The seatbelt clicked free with barely a sound, and still, she didn't stir. He watched her for a moment longer, as if trying to understand how someone who had every reason to hate him could still look so peaceful beside him.
There was something quietly devastating about her like this. Unprotected, unaware, and yet still holding herself like she didn't trust the world not to break her again.
He didn't know when it had started. When she had become the first thought in his head and the last thing he remembered before sleep. When her presence had gone from inconvenient to inevitable. Maybe it had been the way she always looked like she was trying not to need anyone. Maybe it was the fire in her voice when she demanded answers, or the way she softened when she thought no one was watching.
He carefully slipped one arm beneath her knees and the other around her shoulders, lifting her out of the car. She folded into his chest without protest, her head resting against his shoulder. Her body was warm against his, light in his arms, and far more fragile than she ever let on.
He carried her up the steps slowly, making sure not to wake her. The porch light flickered above them, casting a soft halo over her sleeping form as he nudged the door open with his foot. The house was dark; save for the faint glow of a lamp he'd forgotten to turn off in the hallway. He made his way to his own room, kicking the door open just enough to slip inside.
It felt instinctual. Like if he left her alone, she might vanish. Like maybe this time, he could give her something she'd never admit to needing.
The room was cool and quiet. He walked to the bed and gently lowered her down, adjusting the pillow beneath her head. She shifted slightly but didn't wake. Her hand curled under her cheek, and her lashes fluttered once before settling.
After making sure the blanket was tucked snugly around her, Max stepped back and looked at her one last time. Then he crossed the room to his desk, rummaging through the drawer until he found a half-forgotten chocolate bar. The wrapper was slightly wrinkled, but still intact. He took it out, found a sticky note, and wrote two words. He didn't overthink them.
Just, "I'm sorry."
He pressed the note onto the wrapper and placed it on the nightstand beside her, then stared at it for far too long. Like somehow, the words might rearrange themselves into something closer to the truth.
He wasn't sorry for bringing her here. He was sorry for every time she'd felt alone. For every moment she thought he wasn't on her side. For how much he felt and how little he could show.
Turning off the bedside lamp, he stepped out of the room, closing the door almost all the way behind him.
Downstairs, the living room was still, save for the faint hum of the fridge and the distant drip of water from the roof outside. Max dropped onto the couch with a heavy sigh, loosening his tie with one hand. He leaned back, arms spread across the back of the couch, staring up at the ceiling like it might have answers. His shoulders sagged, the weight of the day pressing into his spine. Everything he hadn't said clung to the quiet.
His gaze drifted toward the hallway, toward the stairs, toward the door that now separated him from her.
Before sleep took him, his breathing slowed, matching the quiet rhythm of the room. His expression softened, the lines around his mouth fading, and for once, he looked young. Unburdened. Vulnerable in the way only exhaustion could bring.
And upstairs, behind a half-closed door, a girl he couldn't quite hold onto slept beneath the same roof. She didn't love him. Not yet. Maybe never.
But she was here. And that was enough, for now.
Max had never been the kind of man who believed in fate. But he believed in her. In the way she had walked into his life and turned it upside down. In the way she made him want to be better, even when she was furious with him.
He'd protect her, even if she never knew. Even if she never forgave him. Even if she never looked at him the way he looked at her, like she was both the storm and the shelter.
He let his eyes slip shut, the sound of the rain now nothing more than a faint memory. His breathing slowed. The tension in his body eased. And for the first time in days, he let himself rest.
Upstairs, behind that half-closed door, the girl he carried without ever saying so was sleeping beneath his roof. Maybe that was enough. Maybe someday, it wouldn't have to be.
End of Special Chapter 40.