“I wasn’t. I didn’t,” he whispered, voice trembling. “I’m safe, Fox. I’m here. I’m here with you...if you’ll just...if you’ll just stop running from me.”
“I had to run,” Fox gulped out—and yet somehow his arms moved of their own volition, creeping around Summer, clutching at his back, and suddenly that free-floating feeling was gone, that black drowning sensation, as long as Summer was in his arms. “I can’t... I can’t figure out what I’m doing, I need to just... I’ve been stuck here for so long, stagnating, and if I left I could...”
“Nothing,” Summer said softly. “Leaving Omen didn’t change me, Fox. I didn’t find what I was looking for out there because where you are doesn’t matter. It’s who you are...and you’re not going to find who you are by running. I learned that the hard way. I didn’t find who I wanted to be until I found you...right back in the town I ran away from for all these years.”
Fox lifted his head, stricken, staring at Summer.
He had changed, Fox thought.
Because he was so steady now, so strong, so calm, so certain of himself.
And Fox had changed, too.
Because now he was the one uncertain, fragile, frightened, when before he had tried to make himself so untouchable, so unshakeable.
And he would have to learn to be open to that, to flow with it, to just...reach for something with no certainty that he would ever be able to hold it forever, if he wanted to be with Summer.
“What if I don’t know who I want to be yet?” he whispered. “What if you hate who I become while I try to figure this out?”
“I don’t think that will happen, but there’s only one way to find out.” Summer half-smiled, and still that light of hope burned so bright in him, and Fox didn’t understand how his own thoughtless cruelty hadn’t snuffed it out. “Or you can run, but if you run... I’ll go with you. That’s all I ask. If you have to find yourself somewhere else...let me go with you, so I don’t have to find myself without you.”
“But I...” He shook his head desperately. “I don’t know how to do this, Summer. I don’t know how to live for you.”
“Oh... Fox. You don’t.” Summer’s smile turned so sweet, and he curled a hand against the back of Fox’s neck, drawing him in, their brows resting together, a quiet temple between them creating a warm space free of the rain; a warm space filled with blue eyes that captured and held Fox so deeply. “You live for yourself, and you let me live with you. And it’s hard. I know it’s hard. I know it’s hard, but Fox... Fox, all you have to do is try.” Summer swallowed hard, his voice so thick, so tight, but surely that, too, was just the rain, making wet tracks down his handsome, gentle face. “And if you fail, it’s okay. I’ll fail too. But we’ll fail and fall and help each other back up, and it’ll be okay.” His voice broke on a hitching sound that tore at Fox’s heart. “I just need you to say that you’re willing to try. Try for me.” Tentatively, he brushed rain-slick lips to Fox’s, a feeling like lightning striking. “Try...and stay.”
If only he could make Summer feel the twisting and spiking and shuddering inside him, the earthquakes that went through his heart.
If only Summer knew what he was asking.
But...he did, Fox thought as he met those eyes that made him tremble with the fear of this, the fear of the unknown...
...the fear of never knowing what could be.
The fear of losing Summer, which spoke so much louder than the tiny nattering fears of his tired and cracked heart.
Fox darted his tongue over his lips. He’d never been at a loss for words when he chose to speak, and yet this quiet, brave young man who was asking Fox to be brave with him, to risk his heart, managed to somehow leave him fumbling, lost.
“You terrify me, Summer,” he whispered. “And I think...”
Say it, he told himself.
Say those words he’d said to no one in years.
Say those words that could break the chains he’d bound himself in.
He was twisting a knife in his own heart, and begging Summer not to make him bleed.
And, “I think that is why I love you,” he said, a rush, choked and hot and he couldn’t breathe, but he’d said it and now that those words were out he couldn’t stop even when Summer’s eyes widened, even when Summer stared at him with his expression alight. “You break me until I can’t be cold anymore...you make me feel so much, and that frightens me so terribly.” But he couldn’t let go, either, grasping on to Summer with all his strength. “But what frightens me even more is that I trust you. I trust you to take that fear...and make it something better.”
Summer let out one of those soft, sweet laughs of his, those quiet things full of light that seemed as though he couldn’t keep his emotions inside, always letting them out everywhere as if he was putting stars in the heavens, each bright glow made of feelings he couldn’t help but share to illuminate someone else’s way.
“You frighten me too, Fox,” he admitted. “Half of love is fear.” But those strong, warm hands held Fox so close, fingers weaving into the heavy, waterlogged knot of his hair. “The other half is knowing that person cares for you enough to never use that fear against you. You wouldn’t fear me at all if you hadn’t given me the power to hurt your heart.” He smiled shyly. “So all I can do is make sure I never do.”
“You know that’s impossible,” Fox whispered.
“It doesn’t mean I won’t try. As long as you
