Strings of Fate: The First Loop

CHAPTER 59 - HER JAGGED EDGES MET THE LIGHT

James knelt in front of me, not touching, just there. His presence steady like a lighthouse in the middle of the storm.

“Then let your pain bleed into me,” he said, voice trembling. “Let it wreck me if it means you don’t have to carry it alone. I’ll take it, all of it. Every shard. Every ounce. I’ll carry you until you can stand again.”

His eyes were wet.

“You’re not the first broken person who needed someone. You won’t be the last. But I choose you, B. Not the perfect version. Not the one who pretends she’s okay. You. Exactly as you are.”

I shook my head, sobbing. “What if I’m never whole again? What if I stay like this forever, shattered and scared and full of ghosts?”

Without a word, James pulled me into his arms.

His hands wove gently into my hair. His warmth wrapped around me like a second skin. I collapsed into him, sobbing into his chest like all the years of pain had finally found a crack to escape from.

“Then we stay like this,” he whispered into my hair. “Not fixed. Not perfect. Just… human.”

He pulled back just enough to look at me.

“Broken doesn’t mean unworthy. It means you’ve been through things and still survived. That you feel deeply. That you care.  We are strings woven from our choices--- knotted, torn, and still holding. A pattern in the fabric. Pieces in a mosaic.  We’re not glass to be repaired, B, we’re sea glass. We’re shards turned soft from time and tide, changed by the storms we endured. We’re something new. Something still beautiful.”

His hand cupped my face. “That’s what you taught me. No, what you showed me. Every time you got up when the world tried to break you. Every time you fought for someone else even when you couldn’t breathe. You taught me that we are not defined by the worst parts of ourselves.”

He was crying now. And he didn’t hide it.

“Those are the things that made me fall in love with you. And the things that keep me choosing you. Even on the days I hate myself. Even when I’m lost. It’s you, B. You pull me back. Always.”

He leaned in, forehead to mine.

“I love you.”

I stared at him, barely able to speak.

Because in that moment, I saw it all. The boy who laughed to hide the weight. The boy who drank to feel lighter. The boy who stumbled, and fell, and chose to get back up. The boy who hurt me. And healed me. And hurt again. But kept choosing to stay.

I cupped his cheeks.

“I love you too, James.”

And then we kissed.

Not the kind of kiss that writes fairy tales. The kind that ends wars. His lips met mine, and it was salt and sorrow and salvation all at once. It was trembling hands tangled in hair. It was the sound of the sea pressing close. It was broken hearts pressed together like puzzle pieces trying to remember they belonged.

It was forgiveness. It was fury. It was longing, and grief, and the quiet promise of another chance.

His lips tasted like tears and old memories. Mine, like fear finally letting go.

We kissed like it was the last page of a story neither of us wanted to end. And maybe… it wasn’t.

Maybe this was the beginning of the kind of love that doesn’t promise perfection, but stays anyway.

Even when it hurts. Even when it heals. Especially then. The kiss left salt on my lips. Not just from the sea breeze that curled around us, not just from the tears that clung to our skin like dew on morning grass, but from everything we had survived. Every word we never said. Every hurt we swallowed down. Every 'I'm sorry' tucked in glances. Every 'I love you' left in silence.