He didn't speak. Not for a long while.
The rain outside the window traced thin silver lines down the glass, the only sound in the room besides my own heartbeat. I stood there, half-turned toward the door, still unsure if I should leave or wait for him to say something—anything—to tell me what he was thinking after what happened earlier.
But he remained quiet, leaning against the counter, his hands braced on either side of him. His head was lowered, as if he was listening to something only he could hear. And even in silence, he held more presence than anyone I'd ever met.
I swallowed. "If you want me to go, just say it. You don't have to…"
I didn't finish the sentence. I didn't know how to.
He finally raised his eyes.
Not cold. Not angry. Not distant.
Just tired—tired in a way that felt older than him, older than me, older than whatever had pulled us toward each other since the first day we met.
"You think I want you to go?" he asked quietly.
My breath caught. Because it wasn't what he said—it was how he said it. His voice was low, steady, but underneath it was something he didn't mean to let slip.
Something like wanting.
"I don't know what you want," I whispered.
He exhaled slowly, as if that sentence hit deeper than it should have. "That's the problem," he said. "I don't know either."
I took a small step toward him before I even realized I had moved. His eyes followed the motion immediately, darkening, sharpening. It was the same look he always had when he tried to keep distance… and failed.
"I shouldn't be here," I said. "I know that. You know that."
He didn't deny it.
But he didn't agree either.
He looked at me as if I was something he had spent months trying to forget and yet couldn't stop remembering.
"You think I don't know the consequences?" he said. "You think I haven't been trying to do the right thing?"
"Then why don't you just… do it?" I asked. "Push me away. Tell me to stop coming here. Tell me to stop—"
"Because I can't."
He said it too fast. Too honestly.
The air between us changed, heavy enough to feel.
He straightened, pushing off the counter, and suddenly the room felt smaller. Not because he moved closer, but because something inside me leaned toward him even without taking a step.
"You don't know what this is doing to me," he said quietly.
I looked up at him, my voice barely steady. "Then tell me."
He hesitated. And for a moment, I thought he wouldn't. That he would walk past me, create distance, or retreat into that carefully controlled self he always hid behind.
But instead—
He lifted a hand and slowly pressed his fingers to the space between his eyebrows, as though he was trying to ease a tension no one else could see.
"You make it impossible," he said. "Everything I've built, everything I'm supposed to be… you undo it simply by being here."
I didn't know when I stopped breathing.
"And the worst part?" he added, his voice dropping. "I don't want you to leave. Even when I know I should."
The rain softened outside, but inside the room, everything felt louder.
My heartbeat. His breath. The space between us.
And the truth neither of us dared to touch—but both of us kept drifting toward.
When he finally looked at me again, his voice was barely above a whisper.
"Tell me what you want. Just once. No hiding."
I didn't trust my voice, so I didn't speak.
I stepped toward him.
And this time, he didn't step back.