Alle Kapitel von To be loved like this: Kapitel 11 – Kapitel 15

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