Page 216 of At First Catch

This isn’t new anymore. It’s a pattern. Stress and fear festering beneath the surface. And Nolan retreats inward, trying to carry the world alone until there’s barely room left beside him for anyone else.

Even me.

“You think this is easy for me?” he asks roughly. Immediate regret flashes across his face the second the words leave his mouth.

“I don’t think this is easy for either of us,” I say.

Nolan moves toward me instinctively. “Hads, please.”

But something inside me finally hesitates, and I take one small step back. The tiniest of movements. Still enough to completely hollow him out.

I know what that distance means to him. The thing he’s been afraid of this entire time.

Rain rattles violently against the windows while silence swallows the kitchen whole.

With startling clarity, I realize we’ve reached the point where love no longer fixes the fear.

I look toward the rain-dark windows instead of him because maintaining eye contact suddenly feels impossible.

“You know what scares me most?” I ask.

He doesn’t answer. I think he’s afraid to.

My eyes finally return to his.

“That you’ve started believing the only way to keep people is by sacrificing yourself.”

Nolan keeps trying to save all of it by carrying more and more weight alone until he barely recognizes himself underneath it.

“You think I want this?” he asks roughly.

“No.” My voice cracks. “I think you’re drowning.”

I see the way the words break something open inside him. Like exhaustion finally split straight through the middle of him.

Suddenly, all my anger dissolves into grief again because Christ, he really is drowning. Everything he’s stressing over is all bottled up into the fear of losing the first real home he’s ever had. It’s eating him up, and he doesn’t know how to stop it.

My eyes burn sharply.

“You promised me you’d let me stand beside you when things got hard,” I whisper.

I watch his eyes dip down as guilt slices visibly through him. Somewhere between the investor meetings, the storm damage, and the panic, Nolan slipped backward into old survival instincts anyway.

“I’m trying,” he says.

But I know that answer isn’t enough anymore. Not because I stopped loving him, but because love without trust eventually becomes exhausting.

I close my eyes briefly, trying to steady myself through the ache tearing through my chest.

“I’m standing here, aren’t I?” he asks roughly.

“That’s not the same thing anymore.”

Physically being present stopped mattering once fear made him emotionally unreachable half the time.

Nolan moves toward me again. “I love you.”

The words leave him. Desperately. True enough to physically hurt. And God, that’s what makes this unbearable. I never doubted that part. Not once.