"I need to—" My voice came out rough. "I need to talk to him."
Caleb looked down at me. Rain drummed against the umbrella, loud enough that I almost didn't hear him ask, "You sure?"
"Yeah." I pulled back to see his face. "I'm sure."
He studied me for a moment. Then he nodded and said, "Go."
I stepped out from under the umbrella and the rain hit me immediately. Cold and hard, soaking through my shirt in seconds. I walked toward the truck, toward those headlights, and stopped right in front of them.
The engine cut off.
The door opened and Matt climbed out, confusion written all over his face. "Elena?"
"We need to talk."
He stood there in the rain, water already running down his face, his shirt plastered to his chest. "About what?"
"About this." I gestured between us, at the space that had been there for three years. "About us. We can't keep doing this."
"Doing what?"
"Pretending we're fine. Running into each other and acting like strangers." My voice broke. "Watching you suffer and not saying anything."
He looked at me for a long moment. Water dripped from his hair, his jaw. "What do you want me to say?"
"The truth." I took a step closer. "Whatever you're carrying around. Whatever you've been holding back. I need to hear it."
His hands curled into fists at his sides. "Elena?—"
"Please."
The word came out raw, and something in his face cracked.
"I was coming to find you," he said quietly. "Tonight. Before Mom went missing. I was going to…" He stopped, shook his head. "I was going to tell you that I still love you. Because I do. I love you."
The rain filled the silence between us.
"I know you're with Caleb," he continued, the words coming faster now. "I know I have no right to say any of this. I know what I did and I know what I destroyed and I know you've moved on. But I needed you to know. That I never stopped. That I…" His voice broke. "That I'm sorry. For all of it."
Wind caught my hair and drove it against my face, strands sticking to my skin.
"But then Dad called and Mom was gone and I realized…" He looked up at the sky, rain streaming down his face. "I realized it doesn't matter. What I want doesn't matter. You're happy. You deserve to be happy. And I'm not going to be the person who takes that away from you again."
"Matt—"
"So I decided not to tell you." He looked at me directly. "I was going to let you go. Really let you go. But then you stopped my truck and—" He gestured helplessly. "Here we are."
I was crying now, tears mixing with rain. "I loved you so much, Matt."
"I know."
"Sophie and James. Do you remember? We were going to have kids, we picked out names."
His jaw worked, like he was trying to hold something back. "I… I know."
"Your mom would've known them. Before she forgot everything else, she would've known her grandchildren."
"Elena—"
