Encir­cled by the pres­ence of those who care for him, he feels no lin­ger­ing sor­row from the past. Chap­ter 2 unfolds with no weight of regret from invest­ing time and ener­gy into peo­ple who nev­er deserved his kind­ness. As they walk, Mal­colm hes­i­tates mid-step, his expres­sion etched with some­thing unread­able, but he waves it off, urg­ing them to keep mov­ing.

Their path leads them to Wash­ing­ton Square Park, where the late after­noon light drapes every­thing in gold, and the sound of children’s laugh­ter echoes through the air. The city moves around them, live­ly and chaot­ic, yet an unspo­ken ten­sion remains between them, thick as the sum­mer humid­i­ty. Malcolm’s steps slow as his gaze locks onto a cou­ple seat­ed on a near­by bench, their con­ver­sa­tion silent yet heavy, their ges­tures sharp with unspo­ken emo­tion.

Watch­ing them, he won­ders if Mal­colm is think­ing of Sophie, if he is recall­ing the qui­et con­flicts that grew between them like cracks in a once-sol­id foun­da­tion. Per­haps he sees his own reflec­tion in their strained inter­ac­tion, rec­og­niz­ing the same weight of words left unsaid. He turns to Mal­colm, ready to offer something—advice, com­fort, an open­ing for discussion—but Mal­colm is already look­ing at him, his stare pierc­ing, search­ing.

There is some­thing in that look that unset­tles him, a weight behind it that makes him feel as though every frac­tured part of him­self has been laid bare. He is not ready for this—not for the truth buried with­in him, not for the feel­ings he has nev­er dared to ful­ly acknowl­edge. The lone­li­ness that grips him in the dead of night, the cold empti­ness that coils around his ribs, the doubt that gnaws at the edges of his mind—he has kept them locked away, unwill­ing to face them.

He has spent years won­der­ing if he has ever tru­ly known love or if he has only ever exist­ed as a qui­et pres­ence in oth­er people’s lives, a ghost lin­ger­ing at the periph­ery. The shame that fes­ters inside him, dark and heavy, makes him ques­tion whether he has ever belonged any­where or if he has sim­ply been tol­er­at­ed, a tem­po­rary fix­ture rather than some­thing per­ma­nent. Admit­ting any of this aloud feels impos­si­ble, the words catch­ing in his throat before they can ever form.

Mal­colm speaks, his voice steady but thick with some­thing unspo­ken. “Jude,” he says with cer­tain­ty, his tone car­ry­ing the weight of some­thing far deep­er than reas­sur­ance. “What­ev­er you choose, we’re here for you. You are not your past. You are not your scars.”

For a moment, time seems to hold still, the city’s noise fad­ing into a dis­tant hum as those words set­tle between them. He can­not respond, not because he doesn’t want to, but because some­thing with­in him shifts, like a door creak­ing open after years of being sealed shut. He nods, a small move­ment, but in that moment, it feels like the first step toward some­thing dif­fer­ent, some­thing unfa­mil­iar yet nec­es­sary.

Maybe heal­ing isn’t about eras­ing the past but about learn­ing to exist along­side it, to acknowl­edge it with­out allow­ing it to define him. Per­haps vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty isn’t a weak­ness, but a form of courage, an accep­tance of the truth rather than a retreat from it. Love, he begins to real­ize, is not a trans­ac­tion, not some­thing to be earned or repaid, but some­thing giv­en freely, some­thing that does not demand proof of wor­thi­ness.

They stand in the park, the city con­tin­u­ing its end­less rhythm around them, yet in this moment, every­thing feels sus­pend­ed, weight­less. For the first time in a long time, he con­sid­ers the pos­si­bil­i­ty that he is not meant to endure alone, that he is not beyond sav­ing. He allows him­self to enter­tain the idea that maybe—just maybe—he is allowed to want more, to need more, to hope for some­thing bet­ter.

As the warmth of the late after­noon fades into evening, some­thing with­in him set­tles, qui­et but unde­ni­able. He is not whole, not yet, but for the first time, he lets him­self believe that maybe one day, he could be. And in that moment, in the qui­et under­stand­ing of some­thing shift­ing, he feels, per­haps for the first time, the true weight of what it means to belong.