Hate Me Like You Love Me (Serena and Caleb) novel Chapter 108

Serena’s POV

Healing does not announce itself. It just shows up one evening wearing the face of someone you love, sitting on a swing with proof that the war is not finished written in the redness of his eyes.

I find Caleb where I knew I would.

The clearing holds us the way it always has. He sits on the swing with his hands wrapped around the ropes, head tipped back toward a sky turning amber. His eyes are swollen and red, and he doesn't angle his face away when he hears me.

I lower myself beside him. The ropes creak. Branches rustle overhead. Our breathing finds the same rhythm, his exhale, my inhale.

"I keep waiting to feel like it's over." His voice comes out scraped raw. "The trial's done. Simon's gone. The judge ruled. And I keep waking up braced for the next hit."

I take his hand. His fingers are cold despite the warm evening, gripping mine with a pressure that tells me he has been waiting for this.

"You don't have to talk about it."

"I know." He swallows. "That's why I want to."

"Then I'm right here."

"Maybe it doesn't end all at once. Maybe it ends slowly, in pieces, over years. And maybe that's okay."

"Years." He turns to look at me, testing the word. "You planning to stick around that long?"

"Longer."

The corner of his mouth lifts. "What classes are you taking next semester?"

"Constitutional Law II. Ethics seminar. Maybe that literary criticism elective Mia won't stop talking about."

"You're going to hate the literary criticism elective."

"Probably. What about you?"

"Macro econ. Statistics." He pauses, and the grief in his expression loosens just enough to let the real him peek through. "I was thinking about that environmental policy course. The one with the professor who brings his dog to lecture."

"You want to take a class because of a dog."

"It's a really good dog, Serena. A golden retriever named Professor Barkley."

"That can't be real."

"Hand to God. Mia sent me the syllabus. The dog has its own office hours."

I laugh, and the sound loosens the last knot of tension between us. "What about this summer? You think the clearing would work for a picnic when it warms up?"

"If we can get a cooler down that trail without one of us breaking an ankle, sure."

"I'll carry the blanket. You carry the food."

"Deal. As long as your dad isn't in charge of the menu. Last time he grilled, the burgers tasted like charcoal wrapped in regret."

"He tried so hard, though. You could see the disappointment in his own eyes while he was eating."

"The man looked at his own burger like it had personally betrayed him." Caleb shakes his head. "Catherine's cooking only, then. Speaking of which, do you think her tiramisu recipe could be improved?"

I look at him like he has suggested we set the clearing on fire. "Improved?"

"What if she added a layer of dark chocolate shavings?"

"Don't you dare suggest that to her face. That recipe is sacred."

"You're right. It can't be improved."

He settles between my thighs with a focus that steals every thought from my head. The grass is cool against my shoulder blades. Stars appear through gaps in the canopy.

No grief driving us together. No fear curled underneath the wanting. No ticking clock counting down to courtrooms or crises. Just the warm night and fireflies drifting through the clearing, and two people who survived everything the world threw at them and still want each other this desperately.

His mouth traces down my neck, my collarbone, lower. My fingers tangle in his hair. His name falls from my lips open and unguarded and free.

When he moves inside me, the whole world narrows to the weight of his body, his forehead against my temple, his breathing harsh and reverent in my ear. The stars blur. The fireflies pulse.

I come undone with his name breaking from my chest, and when he follows, he buries his face in my neck and breathes me in with a shudder that runs the full length of his body.

We lie in the grass afterward, half-dressed, legs tangled, my head on his chest where his heartbeat slows against my ear. Fireflies wander through the clearing in lazy arcs, their tiny lights pulsing gold against the dark.

His thumb traces circles on my hip.

"You planned that," he says, and I can hear the smile in his voice without lifting my head.

"I didn't plan the part where we almost died on a swing."

"Near-death experience followed by incredible sex. Very on brand for us."

"We need healthier patterns."

"We absolutely do." His chest rises and falls beneath my cheek. "Starting tomorrow, though."

"Deal." I draw absent patterns on his ribs. The crickets fill the clearing with their steady chorus.

"What are we going to tell people?" His voice shifts, quieter now. "When they ask about us?"

I prop myself up on my elbow and look at him. At the boy who tormented me to survive wanting me. At the man who told truths in courtrooms that cost him everything. At the person beside me, asking the simplest and most terrifying question there is.

"The truth."