Almost Love, Then Everything - Chapter 38: Chapter 38
You are reading Almost Love, Then Everything, Chapter 38: Chapter 38. Read more chapters of Almost Love, Then Everything.
("Some healing doesn’t come with a grand gesture.
It comes in the quiet moment
you stop running from yourself.")
The sky was the color of wet concrete.
It matched Leah’s mood perfectly.
She hadn’t planned on crying today. She hadn’t planned on remembering. But sometimes, memories didn’t ask for permission—they just arrived, uninvited and heavy, like the humidity in the air before a storm.
She stood in front of her childhood home, for the first time in over six years. It was empty now. Abandoned. A shell of what it once was. The gate was rusted. The paint peeled. But the ghosts—those were still intact.
Jade stood beside her, quiet.
Leah hadn’t said much on the drive there. Just: “I think I need to see it. One last time.”
And Jade had only said: “Okay. I’ll drive.”
The air smelled like soil and old regrets.
Leah stepped forward, her fingers trailing along the cold metal of the gate.
She remembered fights behind that door.
Nights crying into a pillow.
Her mother’s silence.
Her father’s voice—loud and sharp like breaking glass.
And the version of herself that learned early to be small, to survive.
“I used to think this place was a cage,” Leah said, her voice barely above a whisper. “But the truth is… I carried the cage with me, long after I left.”
Jade didn’t speak.
Just reached out, gently threading her fingers through Leah’s.
“I blamed myself,” Leah continued. “For all of it. For not being lovable enough. For not being strong enough to make them stay. Or soft enough to make them stop yelling. I thought maybe if I could just be better…”
Her voice cracked.
She exhaled slowly—painfully.
Then she turned around. Faced Jade fully.
“I don’t want to carry it anymore.”
She didn’t sob.
Didn’t fall apart.
She just… stood there.
Tired. Honest. Brave.
And in the quiet that followed, something did fall.
But it wasn’t her.
It was the version of Leah who had been gripping so tightly to old pain, old stories, old guilt.
She let it go.
Right there on the sidewalk in front of the place that once broke her.
And Jade?
Jade stepped forward and wrapped her arms around her. Not to hold her up—but to remind her she didn’t have to do this alone anymore.
Healing doesn’t always look like triumph.
Sometimes it’s just the simple, aching act
of standing where you once shattered—
and choosing not to break this time.
It comes in the quiet moment
you stop running from yourself.")
The sky was the color of wet concrete.
It matched Leah’s mood perfectly.
She hadn’t planned on crying today. She hadn’t planned on remembering. But sometimes, memories didn’t ask for permission—they just arrived, uninvited and heavy, like the humidity in the air before a storm.
She stood in front of her childhood home, for the first time in over six years. It was empty now. Abandoned. A shell of what it once was. The gate was rusted. The paint peeled. But the ghosts—those were still intact.
Jade stood beside her, quiet.
Leah hadn’t said much on the drive there. Just: “I think I need to see it. One last time.”
And Jade had only said: “Okay. I’ll drive.”
The air smelled like soil and old regrets.
Leah stepped forward, her fingers trailing along the cold metal of the gate.
She remembered fights behind that door.
Nights crying into a pillow.
Her mother’s silence.
Her father’s voice—loud and sharp like breaking glass.
And the version of herself that learned early to be small, to survive.
“I used to think this place was a cage,” Leah said, her voice barely above a whisper. “But the truth is… I carried the cage with me, long after I left.”
Jade didn’t speak.
Just reached out, gently threading her fingers through Leah’s.
“I blamed myself,” Leah continued. “For all of it. For not being lovable enough. For not being strong enough to make them stay. Or soft enough to make them stop yelling. I thought maybe if I could just be better…”
Her voice cracked.
She exhaled slowly—painfully.
Then she turned around. Faced Jade fully.
“I don’t want to carry it anymore.”
She didn’t sob.
Didn’t fall apart.
She just… stood there.
Tired. Honest. Brave.
And in the quiet that followed, something did fall.
But it wasn’t her.
It was the version of Leah who had been gripping so tightly to old pain, old stories, old guilt.
She let it go.
Right there on the sidewalk in front of the place that once broke her.
And Jade?
Jade stepped forward and wrapped her arms around her. Not to hold her up—but to remind her she didn’t have to do this alone anymore.
Healing doesn’t always look like triumph.
Sometimes it’s just the simple, aching act
of standing where you once shattered—
and choosing not to break this time.
End of Almost Love, Then Everything Chapter 38. Continue reading Chapter 39 or return to Almost Love, Then Everything book page.