The day is long, longer than the days I spent in prison, which is saying something. But in prison, I had nothing waiting for me, nothing to wait on. Waiting on Noah is torture and turmoil and chaos and confusion. I spend half the time on the brink of tears, on the verge of panic. Milky finds ways to calm me down. Bradley stays quiet… what’s there to say?

Today, we live in a bubble, too afraid to step outside in case the consequences of my past are out there waiting for me.

It’s past nine when Noah returns, the sound of his key in the front door—a door he never uses—making my skin crawl, the hair on the back of my neck stands up. Fear. Not fear of what he’s going to say or do, but fear that I’m going to lose him. He’s had all day to come up with words. Words that will either hurt or heal me. I’ve had all day to try to come up with a way to sugarcoat my history. When he asks, I’ll tell him the truth. And the truth is simple: I fell in love with a man who had a power over me. And he used that power to destroy me.

Noah nods at Bradley when he enters the living room, and then he looks at me, tired eyes and a tired mind. “Come with me?”

Noah leads me up the stairs, through his room, and onto his balcony where he grips the railing, looks out into the darkness of the yard. I’m already fighting back the tears, fearful of the unknown. I can practically hear his mind tick, tick, ticking away as he tries to find a way to start the conversation. I know what it’s like. I used to do a lot of the same. There were so many nights when thoughts of Matt would keep me awake, and all the questions rang through my mind, one after the other. But when the time came for the one phone call we had with each other, I froze, didn’t know where to start. This time, I start the conversation for us. “How was your day?” I ask, standing next to him, my hands at my sides.

“Long,” he says with a sigh. He turns to me, those same sad, pitiful eyes on mine. “How was yours?”

I shrug.

His lips purse as he assesses me. “How are you feeling, Andie?”

I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter.”

Noah sighs as he looks back out at the darkness, up at the stars. After a beat, he asks, “Can you show me where Andromeda is?”

“Um…” I raise my hand, point to the right, confusion blinding all other senses. This isn’t the conversation I expected. “I think it’s over there somewhere.”

He laughs once, a sound that doesn’t belong in this moment.

“Actually,” he says, taking my hand and moving it to the left. “It’s over there.”

“It is?”

He releases me, nodding once. “Do you know how I know?”

“No.”

“Because I’ve kind of been obsessed with the cosmos ever since you told me your name.”

My breath falters. So does my heart.

“You know, I read this book recently that said they discovered something out there…” He motions to the night sky, while my mind drowns in more confusion. “Scientists are calling it Dark Matter and Dark Energy. They say it makes up ninety-five percent of the universe, and the fucked-up part? No one knows what it is. Our entire existence on Earth relies on something that no one has any idea about. That stuff out there—it could be the reason why the world ends tomorrow, and we wouldn’t have a clue. The smartest men in the entire world have no idea what tomorrow will bring. No one knows. And instead of asking when or how… we ask why?” His words are rushed, as if a million thoughts are floating through his mind, and I listen, captivated by every word, every syllable.

“That’s the problem with people. Everyone thinks they know everything until they’re proven to know nothing.” He turns to me, towering over me. “You know what I did tonight?” He takes my hand, holds it to his. He doesn’t clasp it, doesn’t link our fingers. He just holds them together, connected, but not. And then he stares at the bond, as if he’d just created it. As if our connection is his art, and I am his muse.

“What did you do tonight?” I whisper. Barely.

“I went home. Watched a video my sister left for me to see after… just after. And you know what I learned?”

“What?” I croak, the weakness in his words creating my own. “What did you learn, Noah?”

He’s still staring at our hands, and I wish that he was staring at me… so I could look into those eyes, so I could feel something beautiful, not just hear it. “I learned that sometimes, there is no reason, and there are no answers. There just is. We exist in this world where we know nothing. Where we feel like we are nothing. But we are. We are, Andie. And everything we feel, the good, the bad, the dark… it matters. And it may not matter to you, but it matters to the people around you…” His fingers close around mine, tugging until my body’s pressed against his. His breath leaves him when he reaches up, his hand cupping my face, thumb wiping at my warm, wet tears. I choke on a sob I can no longer contain, because everything—everything he’s saying means more than he knows, more than he could possibly comprehend. It’s more than his knowledge, or his experience, or his fight. It’s everything beautiful and everything true. He whispers, his hands still warming my jaw, his eyes still roaming mine, “And so when I ask you how you’re feeling, you can’t say that it doesn’t matter. You just can’t. It should matter to you, because it matters to me. Your darkness matters, Andie.”

I wipe my tears into his t-shirt, drown my cry the same way. It doesn’t last long before his hands are on my jaw, lifting my face to his. His nose brushes mine, while I suck in a breath, hold it there, wait for the consequences of my actions to hit. Lips soft against mine, his kiss is slow, pure, honest. It’s everything he is. Everything I’m not used to. He’s the good fighting evil. The hero versing the villain. The light overpowering the dark.

I sob into his mouth, feel the weight of the world, the walls crash down around and over me, and with all the strength, the fight left in me, I push him away.

I push away the good.

I push away my hero.

I push away my light.

“I’m sorry,” I cry. “I can’t.”

“You can’t? Why, Andie?”

Why? Because I can’t have him as well as my purpose, my reward. I can’t have them both, and that thought squeezes at all my organs, reopens all my wounds. And so I take a step back, give him the only truth I’m brave enough to voice: “Because my heart belongs to someone else.”