All Chapters of To be loved like this: Chapter 11 - Chapter 19

The first time Raegan saw Bryer again, she was holding a bag of groceries and humming under her breath.The sound surprised her when she noticed it. Soft, absentminded, slipping out without permission. She hadn’t been humming for very long, not consciously, but it seemed to follow her lately. Like her body was remembering something before her mind caught up.The elevator in Marley’s building had been out all week, which should have been annoying. Instead, Raegan had started using the fire escape to come and go, climbing carefully with her tote bag bumping against her hip. Something about it made her feel like the main character in a life she was finally writing for herself. Finally moving through the world with intention instead of obligation.She was rounding the corner toward Marley’s front door, keys threaded between her fingers, mentally cataloging what she still needed for dinner, when she nearly collided with someone stepping out of the apartment next door.Two bags of takeout s

Marley had always believed that some women were born soft, and others had softness peeled away from them slowly, until only steel remained.Not the cold kind.Not the brittle kind.The kind forged by pressure and patience. The kind that bent before it broke, and then learned not to bend so far again.Raegan used to be the first kind.Gentle in a way that made people lean in, like they couldn’t quite believe someone so kind could exist without asking for something in return. She listened fully. Loved generously. Gave the benefit of the doubt long after it stopped being deserved. Marley had watched people take that softness like it was an infinite resource, never stopping to wonder what it cost her to keep offering it.But lately…Raegan was becoming steel.Not hardened. Not sharp-edged. Just armored. Learning how to hold her own weight without apologizing for it. Learning that strength didn’t have to be loud to be real.And Marley?Marley had never been more proud.When Raegan first mo

Owen hadn’t touched her side of the bed.He didn’t consciously avoid it. There was no decision behind it, no careful maneuvering of sheets or deliberate keeping to his own edge. It just stayed empty. Pristine, almost. Like a museum exhibit behind invisible glass. As if she’d only stepped out for a second and might come back at any moment. Keys jingling at the door, coffee cup in hand, hair a mess, apologizing for taking so long and laughing like it had never been a big deal.Except she wouldn’t.And he knew that now, in a way that sat heavy in his chest and refused to be ignored.The apartment had gotten quiet in a new way. Not just empty, but echoing. Silence didn’t just exist here.. it lingered. It pooled in corners and pressed against the walls. Her laugh no longer bounced off the kitchen tiles when she told a story mid-chop. Her half-read books weren’t stacked precariously on the end table anymore, bookmarks frozen in the middle like paused thoughts. No humming drifted from the ba

Raegan stood there for a moment after Bryer stepped inside, fingers still tracing the worn edge of the book like it might vanish if she looked away.The door clicked shut behind him, and the sound echoed through the apartment more loudly than it should have. Not because the space was big, but because it had been holding so much quiet lately. The kind of quiet that presses against your skin. The kind that reminds you you’re alone even when you’re trying not to think about it.She barely registered Bryer moving farther in, the way he paused like he wasn’t sure where to put himself. Her attention stayed fixed on the book; its weight, its texture, the way the cover bent slightly under her thumb, proof that it had been opened and loved and carried before it ever reached her.It wasn’t just that he remembered.It was how he remembered.She had mentioned The Sky Beneath Our Feet in passing. Not with intention. Not as a request. Just a soft aside in the middle of a conversation that had wande