"Young love tends to be based on nothing but feelings. The couple has not yet faced and overcome a challenge or difficulty together. They are passionate about each other. They think about each other constantly and want to spend all their time"
Isaac...
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The next morning, Ava stirred awake to the familiar sensation of someone playing with her hair. It was a touch she'd known a thousand times before — long before everything in their world had shattered.
So much had changed since then. They weren't at his family home anymore, not at the place that once felt like theirs. She had lost her right to be there, or at least that's how she saw it. Derek didn't see it that way, but her guilt whispered it relentlessly.
And now — now they had a child. A daughter who wasn't even here, off on a field trip that left Ava's nerves frayed and her heart restless. Not having Angie close was unbearable. Derek stayed calm for her, because one of them had to. If neither of them could hold it together, everything else would crumble. Derek was her anchor. He always had been. He was the kind of calm that wasn't indifferent, but steady — solid. It was why she felt safest with him, and why no one else in the world could compare.
"You were watching me sleep?" she asked softly, turning on the bed to face him. He only smiled and brushed a loose strand of hair away from her face.
"I missed this," Derek admitted, surprising her. She'd been holding that same ache in silence for so long, she hadn't let herself imagine he might feel it too. "You don't?" he asked, noticing the flicker of uncertainty in her expression.
"I do," she confessed. "It's just... I didn't think you loved me anymore." The words slipped out before she could stop them, heavy and vulnerable.
His smile faltered, a look of confusion crossing his face. "After everything that happened... me leaving you for James, the fire, my parents... and Angie..."
"All of that wasn't your fault," Derek interrupted gently, his hand coming up to cradle her face, his thumb tracing the curve of her cheekbone like it was second nature. "Yeah, I was mad — for a while. But all I ever wanted was for you to tell me why. And when I figured out it was your parents... it made me hate them. Not you. And the fire... Ava, that was never on you."
"But if I hadn't gone through with Chris' plan, none of it would've happened," she whispered, her voice thick with regret.
Derek exhaled, the memory of that night flickering behind his eyes. So much had spiraled out of control before the fire. The announcement of her engagement had gutted him. He remembered the rage, the heartbreak, the feeling like his world was ending.
"I know you would've never let any of that happen if you'd had a choice. It wasn't your fault. It was the Argents. The witches. Everyone else. Never you." His voice didn't waver.
Ava just stared at him, memorizing the color of his eyes, the shape of the face she'd loved since she was too young to understand what that even meant. She'd missed being this close — close enough to trace the distance between his eyelashes with her gaze, to feel his warmth beside her.
