POV Owen
It isn’t desire that scares me. It’s how easy it would be to stop feeling at all.
I feel it creeping in during the quiet moments—when Noelle is in the other room, when no one is demanding clarity from me. The numbness waits patiently, offering relief disguised as strength. Control without vulnerability. Distance without guilt. The version of myself that survived by shutting doors instead of opening them.
That man never asked whether he was hurting anyone. He only asked whether he was effective.
I sit alone in the living room, lights low, hands clasped loosely in front of me. Noelle is showering. I can hear the water through the wall, steady and real, anchoring me to the present whether I want it or not.
I am at risk of becoming him again. Not because I want to—but because it would be easier than staying open.
Noelle comes out wrapped in a towel, hair damp from the shower, skin flushed from heat and steam. Her face is bare of makeup and bare of armor, the way it only is when she’s exhausted or brave enough not to perform. She pauses in the doorway when she sees me sitting there, still, staring at the same spot on the coffee table like I’m trying to solve it.
Her voice carries a trace of humor, but her eyes are careful. “You look like you’re interrogating the furniture.”
I blink, as if I’ve been caught doing something indecent. I manage a faint smile that doesn’t quite reach my eyes. “I was losing the argument,” I admit, my voice quieter than usual.
She steps forward and sits across from me, pulling her knees up to her chest, towel tucked tightly as if warmth is something she has to hold onto. She tucks a strand of wet hair behind her ear, watching me the entire time, like she’s waiting for me to either disappear again or finally arrive.
“Which one?” she asks, and the softness in her tone doesn’t disguise the fact that she’s choosing to engage. Choosing to stay in this moment with me instead of leaving it to my silence.
“Whether disappearing is the same as peace,” I reply.
Her expression softens, then tightens. “And what’s winning?”
The question lands heavy, because it isn’t abstract. It’s about us. It’s about whether she’s losing me in inches.
“I don’t know yet,” I say honestly, and I hate how helpless it sounds.
She studies me carefully. “You’ve been quieter today.”
I swallow. My throat feels tight, like the words are physical objects I have to force past something sharp. “I’m afraid of what happens if I stop being quiet,” I admit.
“That sounds like fear,” she says gently.
“It is,” I confirm, and the admission tastes bitter because it makes me feel exposed.
She nods, accepting that without trying to fix it. “Talk to me.”
The invitation lands heavy. Earned and dangerous. And I feel, in the silence that follows, how much it would cost to refuse it.
“I don’t want to turn back into someone I already survived,” I say. She doesn’t interrupt.
“I know how to be ruthless,” I continue. “I know how to make decisions that don’t require consensus or explanation, and I know how to shut off everything that complicates me.”
“And you’re afraid that’s where you’re heading,” she says.
“Exactly.”
“Why?” she asks. “Because you want to?”
“No,” I answer immediately. “That’s because it would be easier than staying exposed. For the man who never had to ask whether he deserved love.”
The memory surfaces again:
I was younger and harder. Running work that blurred legality into something I stopped naming. Violence wasn’t constant—but it was always possible. That was enough to keep people compliant. Enough to keep me insulated.
I didn’t lie awake wondering if I was good. I only wondered if I was sharp. There’s a knock in the memory—a knock on a door I wasn’t supposed to answer.
Michael. Noelle’s father.
He sat across from me like a man who knew exactly who I was and didn’t flinch. That unsettled me more than threats ever had.
“She needs protection,” he said. “Someone who won’t mistake proximity for entitlement.”
I remember laughing then. Quietly. “You want a criminal to guard your daughter.”
“I want someone who understands danger,” Michael replied. “And who knows restraint.”
That word—restraint—felt like a challenge.
Meeting Noelle for the first time hadn’t been dramatic. No sparks. No grand recognition. Just a young woman with steady eyes who didn’t look at me like I was a solution or a threat.
She looked at me like I was a person. I hadn’t known what to do with that.
“I didn’t plan to fall in love with you,” I tell her now.
She exhales softly. “I know.”
“You weren’t supposed to become my life,” I continue. “You were supposed to be a job. A boundary.”
“And instead?” she asks.
“And instead you saw me,” I say. “Not the version people feared or the one they wanted to use. You saw the man underneath and didn’t try to reshape him.”
She tilts her head. “You forget how much you resisted that.”
I remember. I remember the first time I touched her—hesitant, restrained, terrified of crossing a line I couldn’t uncross. I remember realizing she was a virgin not as a conquest, but as a responsibility I had no right to treat casually. I remember wanting her fiercely—and choosing to be careful instead.
“I had never wanted someone without wanting to dominate them,” I say quietly. “That terrified me.”
She meets my gaze. “And yet you stayed.”
“Yes,” I say. “Because vulnerability felt… dangerous but also real. And now,” I continue, “vulnerability feels like something I might fail at.”
She considers that. “You didn’t fail before.”
“I was younger,” I say. “Less divided.”
“No,” she replies calmly. “You were less afraid of losing.” That lands.
“I had nothing to lose,” I admit. “Except myself. And I wasn’t protecting him then.”
She reaches for my hand, slow, deliberate. “You don’t have to choose between who you were and who you are.”
“I don’t know how to hold both,” I say. “I’m scared I’ll wake up one day and realize I chose ease over truth. That I slipped back into old instincts because they required less from me.”
“And what do you think I’ll do if that happens?” she asks.
I swallow. “You’ll leave.” There’s no cruelty in it, just a fact.
“But I’m not there yet,” she adds. “And neither are you.”
I look at her—this woman who chose me knowing exactly how sharp my edges were.
“I don’t know how to choose a different version of myself yet,” I admit.
She squeezes my hand. “Then start by choosing not to run.”
The shower has long gone cold. The apartment hums softly around us. I think of the man I was—the one who moved through the world unburdened by consequence. I think of the man I became when I met her. And the man I might become if I let fear make my choices again.
“I don’t want to lose you,” I say.