She leans back against the couch.
"That doesn’t make you weak. It makes you scared. Just like him."
But I can't quite believe that.
Because the truth is, I didn’t stay long enough to hear him finish a sentence.
I demanded honesty — and then I left before he could give it to me.
I saw everything he’d done as control. As swallowing me. As management.
And maybe some of it was.
But maybe some of it was fear.
The same fear that had me packing a suitcase instead of sitting down.
***
That night, after Luna goes to bed, I pull out my sketchbook.
The Seamus Project.
I haven’t touched it since I left.
I flip past the red curls and fencing whites. Past the museum kiss, the color bleeding across the page.
Tonight, I draw him as I saw him that morning.
Seated behind his desk. Perfect tie. Perfect posture. Documents fanned across polished wood.
But I make the desk too large.
The office too dark.
I deepen the shadows beneath his eyes. I layer graphite thick around him until the room feels like it’s pressing inward.
He’s centered. Composed. In control.
And carrying more than I ever let myself see.
I don’t add color.
Not this time.
I shade his hands last — fingers curled slightly, like he’s bracing against something no one else can see.
When I sit back, I don’t feel angry.
I feel confused.
I was scared then, and if I'm being honest, I'm still scared now.
Scared that if I go back and try to work through this, I'll discover that the man I fell in love with—both versions of him—was never real.
That Seamus O’Malley is exactly who I thought he was the first time I met him.
And I'm even more scared of the opposite possibility: that he is capable of change, that his feelings were real, that we could have had something beautiful if only I'd been brave enough to stay and fight for it instead of running the moment things got hard.
