From Best Friend To Fiancé (Savannah and Roman) novel Chapter 124

**TITLE: Dreams Folding Into Broken Time**
**Chapter 80: Only Need You**

The air in my lungs felt like it had been trapped, as if it had lost its way back to freedom. Not after that casual confession.

Not after he had tossed those words into the atmosphere with such ease. Roman had spoken them as if they were nothing more than a lighthearted joke, like scattering breadcrumbs on a table for birds, yet they landed within me like a seismic tremor, shaking the very foundation of my being.

He loved me.

Or at least, that’s what he had said. Again. For the second time today. And therein lay the fragment that gnawed at my insides, consuming me from the inside out. He had uttered those same words once before, only to laugh it off, brushing it aside as a playful retort to one of my sarcastic jabs, as if I had only said it to entertain him. To coax a chuckle from him. Perhaps that was all it was then. Perhaps that was all it was now.

But then again… what if it was something deeper?

“Are you okay, Sav?” Roman’s smooth, even voice sliced through the storm raging in my mind. He flicked a brief glance my way, his green eyes catching the dim light of the car for just a moment before returning to the road ahead, a landscape that felt both familiar and foreign.

I nodded too quickly, a reflexive action born from desperation. “Yeah.”

What was I even thinking? Of course, he didn’t mean it in that way. He couldn’t possibly. He loved me because I was his best friend, the one who brought laughter into his life. That was all there was to it. That’s what best friends do, right? They toss around “I love you” after wild nights filled with laughter, or in the aftermath of heated arguments, or when they find themselves lost in nostalgic memories.

That’s all this was. Just a friendship love. Just like all those times I had told him I loved him before. I repeated that mantra to myself, over and over again, as if the rhythm could drown out the chaos inside.

Yet, my chest tightened like a fist clenching around my heart, because I knew, deep down, that what I felt was far from the innocent affection friends are supposed to share. And worse still, I couldn’t shake the nagging doubt that he might not recognize the difference either.

Best friends love each other.

And that’s likely what he meant. Nothing more than that. Nothing related to the tumultuous feelings swirling in my mind.

Instead of dwelling on the illogical, it would be wiser to direct all that energy toward ensuring he had truly forgiven me for the mistakes I had made.

“You’re unusually quiet tonight, Sav,” Roman remarked, his tone tinged with an emotion I couldn’t quite identify—was it concern, suspicion, or perhaps a hint of amusement dancing just beneath the surface?

“Am I?” I exhaled, attempting to sound casual, but the sigh that escaped me was heavier than I had anticipated. My gaze drifted out the passenger-side window just as we passed the ‘Welcome To New Hope’ sign—now seen from the opposite direction. The same sign we had breezed by just days ago on our way here, filled with laughter and lightness. This time, however, instead of butterflies fluttering in my stomach, there was a gaping pit that felt as vast as the universe itself.

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