Hardin,
You will never see this—not in this world, not in any world where I have to look you in the eyes while my heart gives itself away.234Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrb7u8VzW9U
And maybe that is the only reason I’m brave enough to write it.
I’ve tried to pretend that what I feel for you is nothing more than a passing fascination, some silly attachment to a fictional boy with too many demons and too much ink on his hands. But the truth is far softer, and far more dangerous:234Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡw75sAtRunE
I fell for you quietly, then all at once, like a curtain lifting on a truth I’d been trying not to see.
It wasn’t just the way you looked at people—like you were daring them to understand you, knowing they never would.234Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuJvdmvJYnX
It wasn’t just the anger, the storms, the messy edges you never learned to hide.234Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzmc4RKUlUk
It wasn’t even the brokenness you tried to bury under sarcasm and cruelty and tattoos.
It was the moments in between.
The rare, fragile seconds when your voice dipped low, without armor.234Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡR3AsoeqJR5
When your hands stopped shaking.234Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAVRkZBbPd3
When your eyes softened, as if you were afraid to want something gentle.234Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡY53a1HWuy5
When you let slip a tenderness you thought no one noticed.
That was when I knew.
Because you, Hardin Scott, are not the hurricane everyone sees.234Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyiJfN0UnZ2
You’re the moment right after the storm—the quiet, trembling air when the world holds still, waiting for the light to return.
I’ve imagined what it would be like if you ever looked at me the way you look at the words you love.234Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFbNrGOuIU0
Like I’m something unraveled and beautiful and slightly dangerous to hold.
I imagine you standing in front of me—angry at yourself for caring, scared you’ll ruin me, scared you won’t—and I’d touch your jaw, slow and gentle, and whisper, “You don’t have to be perfect. Just stay.”234Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHyBl71CYQ6
And maybe, for once, you would.
Because here’s the truth I’ve never said out loud:
I wouldn’t run from your darkness.234Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ195DCim1xG
Not because I want to save you, but because I’ve seen the light inside you, the one you pretend doesn’t exist.234Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhy8GbRh9Tb
The one that flickers whenever you love something—books, words, the past you’re trying to outrun, the heartbeat you never learned to trust.
And yes… I love you.234Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAzANpVEJJA
Not the idea of you, not the fictional shape of you—you.234Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwajNmIvuev
The boy who feels too much, hurts too deeply, cares too fiercely, and pushes people away because he wants them too desperately.
I love the version of you who whispers apologies like prayers.234Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuw51zYfJ1K
The version who can’t sleep because his thoughts are louder than the night.234Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCHyE1TEvyo
The version who would rather break than be vulnerable, but still reaches out with shaking hands.
I love the boy who thinks he is unlovable.
Hardin, if you were real, I would take your face between my palms and tell you that your heart is not a mistake.234Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiKde93HydK
That your tenderness is not a weakness.234Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjQT5rjj7He
That you are allowed to be wanted.
And maybe—just maybe—you’d let yourself believe it.
But you will never read this.234Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQ6jWxEHDI9
You exist in ink and paper, and I exist outside the spine of the book that holds you.
Still, in some quiet, impossible universe, I hope there is a version of you who looks at a version of me and thinks,234Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRoHNIf4FP6
“She sees me… and she stays.”
And in that universe, Hardin?
I think we’d be something beautiful.
—Yours, in every unwritten chapter where love gets a second chance.
ns216.73.216.70da2
and then Add to home screen.