Chapter 6
The next morning, when I opened the door, Adrian was standing outside holding flowers.
I stared at him.
“Since when have you been here?”
He did not answer fast enough, which was answer enough.
Behind him stood Mr. Cole, the family butler, smiling like he had been waiting for this exact question.
“He got up at four,” Mr. Cole informed me happily. “Showered twice. Changed outfits three times. Wrapped the bouquet himself.”
Adrian’s ears turned pink.
Mr. Cole, sensing weakness, continued mercilessly.
“And last night, for the first time in ages, he voluntarily spoke to his grandmother. Two whole sentences. Nearly gave the old lady a heart attack from joy.”
I took the bouquet, trying not to laugh.
“Wow. We’re making progress. Yesterday two sentences, today maybe four?”
Adrian nodded with solemn obedience.
“Four.”
The thing was, I already knew he was trying very hard to seem relaxed for me.
Inside our little bubble, he could touch me, talk to me, sit in silence with me for hours.
But outside of it, the old fear came back.
So I never pushed.
Never forced.
He had told me once that when he was younger, the adults around him had tried harsher methods. Methods meant to shock him into “normalcy.” All they had done was make the shadows deeper.
So I became a bridge instead.
A slow one.
An evening walk in a quiet park.
A nearly empty bookstore.
A convenience store after dark.
Sometimes, when he seemed steady, I would nudge a little.
“Do you want to say thank you to the cashier?”
And if he could not, that was fine.
If he could, that was a victory.
One night, after a cashier handed us a bag, Adrian tightened his fingers around mine and said, very carefully, “Thank you.”
The cashier smiled and moved on.
The second she turned away, I lifted both hands and gave him the world’s tiniest silent round of applause.
His eyes flickered to me.
That shy, impossible mouth softened.
“I wasn’t scared,” he said after a moment.
Then he glanced away and added in a whisper, “With you.”
I think something inside me folded open right then.
Not all at once.
Not enough for me to understand it.
But enough.
Enough for the future to begin moving toward us.