Her mouth parted like she wanted to say no—but then she sighed, glancing toward the hallway behind her.
“She’s asleep,” she said. “You can come by tomorrow.”
I nodded, though everything in me was screaming to stay. To fight. To grab her hand and tell her she was the only thing I was sure about in my whole damn life.
Selene turned to retreat back into her house when I panicked and shouted the first thing that came to mind. “I love you!”
Fuck.
Selene’s mouth dropped open as I stepped forward. “Selene, I’m sorry, I—I didn’t mean to just yell it at you like that, I’m ... shit.”
My eyes bounced between hers as I dragged a hand through my hair. I had shocked her silent with the world’s most unhinged declaration of love, and while I meant it, she deserved more than a hastyI love youon the heels of my fuckup, like those words would fix what I did.
“I can’t do this right now,” she finally whispered. “Good night, Austin.” I stood there as she stepped back inside and closed the door with an almost unbearable softness.
The click of the latch might as well have been the sound of something breaking clean in two.
I stood on the porch until the moth disappeared, until the porch light flickered again and went out, until I couldn’t feel my fingers around the now-cold paper bag.
Just one wall between us, and it might as well have been a canyon.
Inside, I sat on the edge of my bed, hands clenched so tight in my lap they’d gone white at the knuckles.
The room didn’t feel like mine anymore.
Same boots by the door. Same hoodie tossed over the chair. Same dent in the mattress where I always crashed after long days, but something had shifted. Or maybe everything had.
The silence felt wrong. It was loud and cavernous all at once.
I glanced at the wall beside me—the one that separated my room from Selene’s. It used to be nothing more than drywall and studs. Something we laughed about when I had first moved in. How we’d have to keep it down. How thin the walls were. How close we were.
Now it might as well have been a fucking mountain.
I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, and stared at that stretch of painted plaster like it might answer for me. Like maybe, if I looked hard enough, it would give me a way through.
A thump echoed faintly—a drawer closing. Then footsteps, soft but unmistakable. The creak of floorboards under Selene’s feet.
She was still awake.
Still moving. Still holding everything together on the other side, because she always did. Even when she was breaking.
I closed my eyes and tried to picture her tucking Winnie in. Folding her little pajamas, brushing crumbs from the kitchen counter, flipping off the porch light and going to bed alone.
Fuck.
My chest tightened, breath catching hard behind my ribs as I walked toward the wall. I pressed a hand to the surface. Flat palm, fingers splayed like maybe if I held still enough, she’d feel it.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered into the darkness.
I didn’t expect an answer, but I hoped maybe she’d feel something in the way I said it. If she heard, I only hoped she knew I meant it with every part of my soul.
I was sorry for missing the performance. For being too late. For not immediately choosing them over anything else.
Regret pulsed so thick I thought I might drown in it.
I didn’t know how to fix what I’d broken. I only knew that wall had never felt so impossibly solid.
I let my head fall forward, resting my forehead against the cool sheet of plaster, and stayed there in the quiet. Listening for her and reaching out for nothing.
