•⋅⊰∙∘☾✶☽∘∙⊱⋅•✾•⋅⊰∙∘☾✶☽∘∙⊱⋅•

The confession hung heavy in the air between us, raw, unprotected, embarrassing in the way truths can feel when spoken for the first time. I immediately regretted it, looking away to avoid seeing how Damien was looking at me.

But I saw it anyway. My chest tightened.

There it was. That look. The one I couldn’t stand.

"Don’t you fucking dare," I said.

His eyebrows pulled together. "Don’t what?"

"Look at me like that."

Understanding flickered in his eyes. "Like what?"

I scoffed, "Like you feel sorry for me."

Something firm settled into his expression. "That’s not pity."

"Sure."

"It’s not."

I laughed quietly, hollow. "Right."

Damien leaned forward. "Oliver."

I didn’t answer.

"Look at me."

I didn’t, but he cupped the side of my jaw with such gentle fingers and turned my gaze to face himself. When, I met his gaze. It didn’t waver; steady and serious, making it hard to deflect.

"I don’t pity you," he said. "I think what you’re doing is way too much." He paused, jaw tightening slightly. "You’re working yourself into the ground. You’re carrying enough stress for three people."

I opened my mouth to argue. But he pressed a finger to my lips, shushing me.

He continued. "And somehow you’re still showing up every single day." His voice softened. "That’s not something I pity; it’s something I admire."

The words hit me unexpectedly, landing somewhere I hadn’t braced for them to go...as usual, my cheeks flushed and I barely had the energy to hid it. I didn’t know what to do, so I just sat there, holding the silence, until he stood and walked toward the kitchen.

A minute later, he returned with a glass of water and pressed it into my hand.

"Drink."

"I’m not five."

"Drink."

I rolled my eyes, then drank because I didn’t have the energy to argue. The corner of his mouth twitched, small, satisfied. After making sure I drank half the glass, he sat down beside me.

Not too close, just enough that our shoulders brushed, the contact oddly grounding, like an anchor in a room that had been slightly spinning all morning.

Neither of us moved away.

A few moments passed. Then Damien said, "You know I can help."

Immediately, I knew exactly where this was heading. "No."

"You don’t even know what I was going to say."

"Yes, I do."

His expression stayed calm. "The medical bills."

"Yeah, nope."

"Oliver—"

"No."

He exhaled slowly. "I can handle that easily."

My head snapped to him. "Absolutely not."

"Why?"

"Because they’re my responsibility."

"That’s a stupid reason."

I stared at him. "Excuse me?"

"A stupid fucking reason."

My mouth fell open. "You can’t just call my reasoning stupid—"

"I just did."

The nerve. The absolute nerve of him. I pointed a finger at his chest. "You already buy groceries."

"So?"

"You cook."

"So?"

"You practically keep this whole apartment running by yourself."

His expression remained infuriatingly calm. "And?"

"That’s already enough, Damien."

He folded his arms. "No."

I blinked. "No?"

"No."

"What do you mean no?"

"I mean helping isn’t a limited resource. It’s not something I’m going to run out of if I do too much of it."

I groaned, dropping my head back against the couch cushion. "See, this is exactly why you’re impossible."

"Me?"

"Yes, you."

His eyes narrowed slightly. "You’d genuinely rather collapse from stress than let someone support you?"

"I support myself just fine." I said. I just couldn’t have someone else carry my burdens. I promised myself a long time ago that I’d never let myself be indebted to anyone or depend on anyone except myself.

"You had a panic attack last month. I didn’t know what was going through your mind then, but I do now."

I flinched at the memory, of me locking myself in the bathroom and hyperventilating after getting a letter that the medical bills had suddenly increased.

I remembered Damien banging at the bathroom door then forcing his way in... and with such worry and patience in his eyes telling me to breathe.

I said weakly, "T...that was one time."

"You fell asleep standing up in the kitchen."

I blinked in shock, damn...he saw that? "One time."

"And you forgot to eat for almost an entire day."

"One—"

"Time?" he finished, eyebrow raised, perfectly accurate. "Liar."

I closed my mouth. The evidences had betrayed me, and Damien looked annoyingly pleased with himself, which would typically have earned him a pillow to the face. But his expression softened just as I was about to throw something.

The frustration lingered in his voice, but underneath was something warmer, making my chest feel tight in a different, less argumentative way.

"You don’t have to do everything alone," he said.

The words landed harder than they should have.

I looked down at the empty glass in my hands, turning it slightly, watching the light catch the rim. For months, every single day had been about survival: work, bills, hospital visits... repeat, on a loop that never slowed down.

There had never been room for anyone else in that equation; never room to lean on someone, because if I stopped carrying the weight, even for a moment, who would pick it up?

Yet, Damien sat beside me as if the answer was obvious. Like helping wasn’t a burden he was reluctantly taking on. Like staying through all of this, the mess, the exhaustion, the version of me that forgot to eat...wasn’t hard for him at all. Like caring didn’t have to be earned through years of proving myself worthy.

A warm hand rested briefly on my shoulder. Just enough pressure to ground me, not enough to trap me, just someone choosing to be there.

When I looked up, his expression was sincere, none of the usual teasing armor in sight.

"You’re not alone in this anymore."

My throat tightened again. I hated that those six words affected me so much. Hated how badly, after months of carrying everything alone, I wanted to believe them.

Neither of us spoke after that. The apartment stayed quiet, but it wasn’t the suffocating silence from before... not the kind that follows a slammed door and a relationship gone wrong. This felt different.

Softer and safer, somehow, in a way I never expected a regular morning that started this badly to produce.

For the first time in months, someone knew the truth. The whole truth... about my dad, the bills, the exhaustion I’d been hiding behind sarcasm and extra shifts and the unyielding insistence that everything was fine.

And somehow, against every instinct telling me this should have gone differently, the world hadn’t ended.

Later, when I finally dragged myself toward my room, one thought refused to leave me alone.

I’d spent months terrified of anyone seeing how heavy my life actually was, terrified that if someone saw the full weight of it, they’d quietly back away, the way people do when a problem turns out to be bigger and more permanent than they signed up for.

Now Damien had seen it, all of it. The hospital, the bills, the fear that I might lose the only parent I had left.

And instead of running, he was still here.

That scared me more than anything else that had happened all morning