Hardin,
You will never see this—not in this world, not in any world where I have to look you in the eyes while my heart gives itself away.160Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzhk0sCn7yM
And maybe that is the only reason I’m brave enough to write it.
I’ve tried to pretend that what I feel for you is nothing more than a passing fascination, some silly attachment to a fictional boy with too many demons and too much ink on his hands. But the truth is far softer, and far more dangerous:160Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzmgD8S1ZzE
I fell for you quietly, then all at once, like a curtain lifting on a truth I’d been trying not to see.
It wasn’t just the way you looked at people—like you were daring them to understand you, knowing they never would.160Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkSwqPGx2uH
It wasn’t just the anger, the storms, the messy edges you never learned to hide.160Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWZUCi5wTKt
It wasn’t even the brokenness you tried to bury under sarcasm and cruelty and tattoos.
It was the moments in between.
The rare, fragile seconds when your voice dipped low, without armor.160Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbjTuzeOPqi
When your hands stopped shaking.160Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8Dxb3DZcOI
When your eyes softened, as if you were afraid to want something gentle.160Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHdoJXyRxxe
When you let slip a tenderness you thought no one noticed.
That was when I knew.
Because you, Hardin Scott, are not the hurricane everyone sees.160Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2O2WHgvUnC
You’re the moment right after the storm—the quiet, trembling air when the world holds still, waiting for the light to return.
I’ve imagined what it would be like if you ever looked at me the way you look at the words you love.160Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡq55Q1MMa20
Like I’m something unraveled and beautiful and slightly dangerous to hold.
I imagine you standing in front of me—angry at yourself for caring, scared you’ll ruin me, scared you won’t—and I’d touch your jaw, slow and gentle, and whisper, “You don’t have to be perfect. Just stay.”160Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡk7hlWFq09D
And maybe, for once, you would.
Because here’s the truth I’ve never said out loud:
I wouldn’t run from your darkness.160Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfnPFwFpQXP
Not because I want to save you, but because I’ve seen the light inside you, the one you pretend doesn’t exist.160Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaiS0WGUeb4
The one that flickers whenever you love something—books, words, the past you’re trying to outrun, the heartbeat you never learned to trust.
And yes… I love you.160Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWiDs0484g8
Not the idea of you, not the fictional shape of you—you.160Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbqkSX6qN3S
The boy who feels too much, hurts too deeply, cares too fiercely, and pushes people away because he wants them too desperately.
I love the version of you who whispers apologies like prayers.160Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpOX9E7G6p7
The version who can’t sleep because his thoughts are louder than the night.160Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYRdHOMrD8k
The version who would rather break than be vulnerable, but still reaches out with shaking hands.
I love the boy who thinks he is unlovable.
Hardin, if you were real, I would take your face between my palms and tell you that your heart is not a mistake.160Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTOhz1D9Jvq
That your tenderness is not a weakness.160Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdBxdK989gH
That you are allowed to be wanted.
And maybe—just maybe—you’d let yourself believe it.
But you will never read this.160Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡodb173XToP
You exist in ink and paper, and I exist outside the spine of the book that holds you.
Still, in some quiet, impossible universe, I hope there is a version of you who looks at a version of me and thinks,160Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡs6gOx73G9P
“She sees me… and she stays.”
And in that universe, Hardin?
I think we’d be something beautiful.
—Yours, in every unwritten chapter where love gets a second chance.
ns216.73.216.89da2
and then Add to home screen.