Where Fear Meets Hope
Sam is still on his knees.
Not because it’s dramatic.
Not because he planned a proposal like some perfect movie moment.
Just him — breath shaking, eyes glassy — holding both my hands like he’s afraid that letting go means losing me all over again.
Something inside me twists.
Not panic.
Not fear of him.
Just a deep, buried instinct my body learned long before I ever loved Sam.
“Marry me, Summer.”
My name breaks in his voice.
My heart breaks right after.
My throat goes tight.
Too tight.
My stomach knots so sharply it steals my breath — a reflex I hate, a reaction that hits before my mind even catches up.
“Summer?” he whispers. “Talk to me. Please.”
I blink hard, but my vision still swims.
His hands around mine are steady, warm, safe — but something in me sinks backward, into shadows I never asked to carry.
“I… I can’t,” I manage, voice cracking.
He doesn’t move.
He’s just there, kneeling on the carpet, looking up at me like I’m the answer to every question he’s ever whispered in the dark.
“Can’t what?” Sam asks, softer now.
Everything.
My breath catches again — too fast, too uneven — and a familiar ache blooms low in my stomach.
An ache I haven’t felt in years, but one my body never forgot.
I shake my head hard, like the movement will knock loose the memories clawing up the back of my throat.
It doesn’t.
Eric’s hands.
Cold tile.
Pain blooming sharp and wrong.
Adults hovering with questions I couldn’t answer.
Running feet.
Sirens.
Being told what happened to me wasn’t what happened to me.
Being sixteen and blamed for surviving.
I pull one hand away from Sam without meaning to, instinctively pressing it flat over my stomach — a small habit I still haven’t broken, a habit born from love and loss.
“Sam…” My voice splinters. “I love you.”
His entire face softens, hope flickering back into his eyes.
“But I don’t know how to be yours.”
His expression breaks like he wasn’t expecting the blow.
“Summer,” he says quietly, “I’m not asking you to be perfect.”
“I’m not safe,” I whisper. “Everything around me falls apart. I fall apart. I ruin things. I hurt people. I’ll hurt you again.”
“You don’t hurt me,” Sam murmurs, eyes shining. “You saved me.”
“No.” Tears sting, blurring everything. “You saved me.”
He stands slowly, still holding one of my hands.
“Then let me save you again.”
He reaches up — gentle, careful — fingertips barely brushing my cheek.
I flinch.
Not at him.
Never at him.
At the memory.
Something buried deep inside me recoils, a body-memory wired into me long before Sam ever touched me with anything but love.
Sam sees it instantly.
He pulls his hand back like he touched fire.
Guilt rushes over his face.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean— I shouldn’t have—”
“I know,” I cry quietly. “I know, Sam.”
My legs buckle before I can steady myself.
Sam guides me to sit on the edge of the bed — not holding me, not crowding me — just making sure I don’t fall.
He sits too, leaving space.
“You don’t have to answer me tonight,” he says softly. “You don’t have to answer at all. Just… don’t disappear again.”
My tears fall faster.
“I won’t,” I whisper.
But inside?
Inside I feel sixteen again — small, unheard, alone, terrified of wanting something I might lose.
Sam stands slowly, hands trembling just slightly.
“I should let you rest.”
He hesitates.
“If you need me tonight, call. I don’t care when.”
He walks to the door.
Pauses.
“I’ll be at my parents’ house,” he says quietly. “Ten minutes away. I’m not going far.”
He looks back at me like I’m something fragile and beloved all at once.
“I love you, Summer. Goodnight.”
The soft click of the door closing is somehow louder than his proposal.
The moment the lock snaps into place, something inside me gives out.
I sink off the bed and curl onto the floor, arms wrapped around my knees, forehead pressed into the carpet.
My breathing fractures.
Cold sweat.
Shaking hands.
A hollow ache blooming in my stomach — grief mixing with fear, mixing with the memory of a future I once held beneath my ribs.
“What is wrong with me?” I whisper.
“Why can’t I just… be okay?”
I wipe at my face uselessly.
I’m not just crying about Sam.
I’m crying about promises I’ll never get back.
About a part of me I lost at sixteen and still haven’t found again.
My phone lights up on the nightstand.
I crawl toward it, limbs weak.
Melanie — Counselor (France).
My thumb shakes as I press call.
It rings once.
Twice.
“Summer?”
Her voice is calm, warm, steady — the exact opposite of the chaos inside me.
“Are you safe?”
I choke on a breath.
“I… I don’t know,” I whisper. “S-something happened.”
“Okay,” she says gently. “You did the right thing calling me. Tell me what’s going on.”
My throat tightens.
“He… he proposed.”
A quiet pause.
Not surprise.
Not judgment.
Just understanding.
“And how did that make you feel?” Melanie asks.
My voice breaks.
“Like I can’t breathe,” I whisper.
“Like I don’t deserve it.”
“Like I’m going to ruin everything all over again.”
I press a hand to my stomach — a reflex, a ghost of a memory.
“Melanie…”
A sob shakes out of me.
“I love him.
But I don’t know how to be loved by him.”
And for the first time tonight—
I finally tell the truth.
