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.257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBBN6SGLaIb
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:257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJjfcCdbVhP
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.257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxHuzBBbFnP
It wasn’t just the anger, the storms, the messy edges you never learned to hide.257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZdrhskg0Da
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.257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgvQRb8k9Fc
When your hands stopped shaking.257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡK7eErGFRmP
When your eyes softened, as if you were afraid to want something gentle.257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3OefwpXftR
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.257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡy6Yf9tPbBa
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.257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmm2eA3IgZ8
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.”257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡS9wW5PJ5Ws
And maybe, for once, you would.
Because here’s the truth I’ve never said out loud:
I wouldn’t run from your darkness.257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcsuGDusbtj
Not because I want to save you, but because I’ve seen the light inside you, the one you pretend doesn’t exist.257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7ljnACJcOa
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.257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcIkiFOdGyh
Not the idea of you, not the fictional shape of you—you.257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWKuhg7goxB
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.257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvPWFfFzhGQ
The version who can’t sleep because his thoughts are louder than the night.257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6TNgyOAm7n
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.257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgm74QWZKN0
That your tenderness is not a weakness.257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡc8it93nVHh
That you are allowed to be wanted.
And maybe—just maybe—you’d let yourself believe it.
But you will never read this.257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgBYwrIshOD
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,257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQizDkdiYZi
“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.
ns216.73.216.95da2
and then Add to home screen.