Almost Love, Then Everything - Chapter 44: Chapter 44

It was a Thursday. The kind of day where the sky felt too heavy for sunlight, and the wind pushed through the city like it had a message to deliver but didn’t know where to stop.
Leah had been quiet all morning.
Not the usual kind of quiet — not the one Jade had grown used to, where Leah simply chose silence over small talk, comforted by presence more than words. No, this quiet was brittle. It didn’t hum softly; it buzzed like something about to break.
Jade noticed it in the way Leah moved — slower, distracted, like her body was there but her mind was pacing a thousand miles away. She noticed it when Leah reached for her coffee but forgot to drink it, when she blinked too long, like she was holding something behind her eyes.
By late afternoon, it was undeniable.
Jade found Leah in the bedroom, sitting on the edge of the bed, staring down at her phone. Her posture wasn’t slouched or relaxed — it was tight, like she was holding herself together with invisible thread.
"Leah?" Jade said gently from the doorway.
Leah didn’t look up right away. She just inhaled deeply, the kind of breath that sounded like it was borrowed from somewhere else, like it didn’t really belong in her chest.
Jade crossed the room slowly and sat beside her, careful not to touch her too quickly. “Is everything okay?”
At first, there was nothing. Just silence. Just the soft hum of the fan and the sound of distant traffic outside their apartment.
Then Leah’s voice came, barely above a whisper. “My dad called.”
Jade stiffened slightly. Leah never talked about him — only ever in passing, always with a shrug that felt rehearsed. There was a wall around that part of her past, one Jade had never tried to climb. She always assumed she’d be invited in when Leah was ready.
“And?” Jade asked, her tone soft.
Leah swallowed. Her lips trembled slightly. “He said he saw a picture of me. That I looked ‘different now.’ That… he was surprised I turned out this way.”
The words hung heavy between them.
This way.
Jade didn’t ask what he meant. She knew. The way Leah looked now — freer, more herself. The short hair she’d proudly chosen. The way she loved a woman openly. The way she laughed now, without apology.
And then, without warning, Leah’s voice cracked. “He said he didn’t recognize me anymore.”
It wasn’t the words. Not really. It was the way she said them — like she was seven years old again, trying not to cry in the middle of a classroom. Like she had trained herself not to let it out. Like she’d spent years pretending it didn’t matter just so she could keep going.
But it did matter.
To Leah, it always had.
And Jade saw it happen.
The slow unraveling.
The way Leah’s fingers tightened around her phone, her jaw trembling as her lips parted like she was about to say something else — but nothing came out.
Then, for the first time since they met, Jade saw Leah cry.
Not a single tear quickly brushed away.
Not a controlled, quiet sniffle.
These tears were raw. They slipped down Leah’s cheeks one after another, silently, like they’d been waiting years for permission.
Jade’s heart clenched.
She reached out slowly, touching Leah’s knee, grounding her. “Hey,” she whispered. “I’m here.”
Leah shook her head, as if ashamed, as if breaking down was some kind of failure.
“I’m sorry,” she choked out. “I didn’t want you to see me like this.”
Jade leaned closer, wrapping her arms around her. “Why not?”
“Because I don’t know how to… do this. I don’t know how to cry in front of someone and not be afraid they’ll leave.”
Jade pulled her tighter. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Leah broke then — truly broke. Her hands clutched at Jade’s shirt, her face buried in her shoulder. Her body shook with quiet sobs, as if it had finally surrendered to something it had been fighting off for too long.
And Jade just held her.
Not trying to fix it.
Not asking questions.
Just holding her, like her presence alone could tell Leah all the things she needed to hear:
That she was not too much.
That her tears were allowed here.
That she was still loved in the middle of her pain — maybe even more because of it.
Minutes passed. Maybe more. Time blurred.
Eventually, Leah’s breathing slowed. Her hands loosened their grip, her head resting heavily against Jade.
“I didn’t think it would hurt this much,” Leah said quietly.
Jade ran her fingers through Leah’s hair. “Of course it hurts. You’re not made of stone.”
Leah looked up at her then, eyes swollen and red, but full of something else — trust. Vulnerability. A kind of exhausted relief.
“I didn’t know how much I needed this,” she whispered.
Jade kissed her forehead. “You don’t have to be strong all the time.”
Leah closed her eyes and leaned into her. “Then… can I be soft with you?”
Jade nodded against her. “Always.”
And in that moment, something shifted between them. Not dramatically. Not loudly.
But deeply.
Because love wasn’t just in laughter and stolen kisses and playful touches.
It was here, too — in cracked voices and wet cheeks, in the sacred space of someone falling apart and letting you stay.
That night, Leah slept with her head on Jade’s chest — peacefully, without pretending.
And Jade lay awake for a while, holding her close, knowing something had changed.
Not broken. Not damaged.
But opened.
A door finally unlocked.
A heart finally letting itself be seen.
And for Jade, it was beautiful.
Because the strongest people she knew weren’t the ones who never cried.
They were the ones who finally did — and let someone love them through it.