He glanced sideways, voice quieter.
“She buried her own dreams just to make space for everyone else’s. Then, all of a sudden, someone’s seeing her. Someone trying to carry weight she’s never let anyone else touch. Choosing her. Offering things she never thought she deserved. Especially when you’ve spent your whole life thinking no one ever would. That kind of shift doesn’t feel safe when you’ve never had a soft place to land. It feels dangerous. Like free-falling.”
Damien’s fingers curled around the railing, knuckles tight.
“I don’t want to be her free fall, Nick. I want to be her anchor. The one constant she can trust, not something that throws her off balance.”
He exhaled slowly, jaw tense.
“But how do you prove to someone who’s never had safe… that you are?”
A beat of silence pass
