Always Not Enough

The first thing I felt was warmth.

Not just the physical warmth of being wrapped in a blanket, but a deeper, more familiar heat — the kind that seeped into my bones and made my heart ache. I was cocooned in it, safe in a way I hadn't felt in years.

My head rose and fell with every slow, steady breath beneath me, and the rhythm rooted me, held me together. The scent that filled my senses was a mixture of rain, leather, and something distinctly Malyen — the kind of scent that had lived in my memories long after I tried to forget.

I stirred, the ache in my body a reminder of how tightly we'd held onto each other. My fingers curled slightly, brushing against the fabric of his shirt. The world beyond my closed eyes started to sharpen, the faint gray light of morning filtering through the windows, a distant hum of the city weaving into my awareness.

But inside the loft, it was quiet. Still.

I didn't want to open my eyes.

Because if I did, reality would seep back in. The world would crash down, and the weight of what we'd done — what we felt — would become too heavy to bear.

But the heart beneath my cheek gave a soft, familiar thud, and I couldn't resist it. I tilted my head back, the slow movement making his arms instinctively tighten around me.

And then I saw him.

Malyen's face was soft in sleep, the hard edges smoothed away. The tension in his jaw was gone, the lines of regret and exhaustion temporarily erased. His dark lashes rested against his cheeks, and for a moment, he looked like he used to — like the boy who held my hand through every storm, the boy who made me feel like I could do anything.

A painful knot twisted in my chest, the ache sharp and bittersweet.

A tear slid down my cheek before I could stop it. How did we get here? How did something so simple, so right, become so tangled and broken?

The room was quiet, the kind of quiet that hummed with unspoken things, with breaths held and hearts trembling. The air between us was thick with everything we'd kept buried, with all the words that couldn't — wouldn't — find their way out.

He swallowed hard, his voice low and rough. "Can we just... lay here? Just for a minute?" His gaze softened, a flicker of that boy I used to know peeking through the shadows. "Like we used to?"

His words hit me like a whisper from the past. Like we used to. Memories unfurled — late nights in my room, the glow of plastic stars above us, his heartbeat steady beneath my ear, the warmth of his fingers tangled in my curls. Our first kiss, hesitant and sweet, when everything still felt simple and possible.

I hesitated, the guilt pulling me back, but the ache in my chest — the desperate need for something solid — was stronger.

"One minute," I whispered, the words tasting like a lie even as I said them.

He nodded, his eyes never leaving mine. "One minute."

Without a word, he eased back onto the sofa, his eyes never leaving mine. The faint glow from the city lights outside crept through the window, brushing against his face, illuminating the shadows etched into his features. The world outside was waiting for us to fall apart again, but in here, time had bent itself into something fragile and still.

I hesitated for a heartbeat, my chest tight, my feet unsure.

Then, as if gravity itself was pulling me, I moved toward him. Slowly. Carefully. I sank down beside him, the warmth of his body a magnet to my own. My head found its place on his chest, the solid thud of his heartbeat filling my ears, a steady rhythm beneath my chaos.

His arm slid around me, tentative, like he was afraid I might break. His fingers brushed against my shoulder, then curled gently into my hair, threading through the curls with a reverence that made my breath catch.

We didn't speak.

We didn't need to.

The silence between us was sacred, a thread spun so tightly that one word might unravel it all. There were no apologies, no explanations, just the steady truth of his heartbeat and the warmth of his fingers in my hair. Just us — stripped of pretense, stripped of everything but the ache of knowing and the relief of being known.

I closed my eyes.

For the first time in years, I let myself feel it all.

The love we'd buried. The pain we'd caused. The desperate hope that maybe, somehow, we could find our way back to each other.

His chest rose and fell beneath my cheek, each breath a soft, trembling echo of my own. I felt his muscles tense, then relax, like he was trying to memorize the shape of me, the weight of me against him. His fingers continued their slow path through my hair, each movement unraveling knots I didn't know I'd tied.

A warmth slid down my cheek — a tear I hadn't realized I'd shed. It soaked into his shirt, a silent confession.

And then I felt it — the faint tremor of his body, the subtle hitch in his breath. His fingers stilled in my hair, and a tear of his own traced a slow path down his temple, disappearing into the shadows.

We were breaking and mending in the same breath.

My hand found his free one, my fingers slipping between his, our palms pressing together. His grip tightened, desperate and gentle all at once, like he was holding onto the only thing that kept him tethered to the world.

The tears kept falling, soft and quiet, washing away the years of silence, the walls we'd built, the distance we'd tried to impose.

In that moment, we weren't broken. We weren't lost.

We were just Jupe and Mal.

The kids who once whispered secrets under glow-in-the-dark stars. The souls who knew each other's shadows and held them anyway. The hearts that beat in time with each other, even when they tried to forget.

The world outside could wait. The guilt, the mistakes, the future — they were nothing compared to the truth that thrummed between us now.

We stayed there, wrapped in the quiet, the tears, the love that pulsed through every breath.

It was just one minute.

But in that minute, we found everything we'd been missing.

As if he could feel my thoughts, Malyen's eyes fluttered open. The blue-green depths were soft with sleep, but when they met mine, they filled with a fragile, aching awareness.

He didn't speak. He just looked at me, his eyes searching mine, as if afraid to break the delicate thread holding this moment together.

I wanted to say something, to acknowledge the flood of emotions coursing through me — the hope, the fear, the desperate longing — but the words caught in my throat.

His fingers, still tangled gently in my curls, brushed against my scalp. His voice, when it came, was a whisper.

"Hey."

That single word cracked something inside me, and I swallowed hard, trying to steady myself. "Hey," I whispered back, my voice trembling.

His thumb brushed the tear from my cheek, lingering just a moment too long. "You okay?"

I nodded, though I wasn't sure if it was true. The storm inside me was too tangled, too wild. But right now, wrapped in his arms, the world felt bearable.

"I am now," I murmured.

A soft smile tugged at the corner of his lips, bittersweet and tentative. "Me too."

The silence stretched between us — not awkward, not heavy, just... there. A quiet acknowledgment of everything that had been broken, and everything that still might be mended.

I closed my eyes, resting my head back on his chest. The steady beat of his heart was a lullaby, and I let it wash over me.

But even in this fragile peace, I knew the clock was ticking.

Reality was waiting for us. The past was still there, and the choices we'd made — the people we'd hurt — weren't going to disappear.

I closed my eyes, letting one more tear slip free.

For now, though, I held onto the warmth, the steadiness, the truth of him.

Because at this moment, we weren't broken.

We were just us.