“When?” His voice lifts, but only slightly. Enough to sting, not enough to draw eyes from the tables around us.
“I’ve been trying to talk to you for years. You never listened. So I left. And I told you—first in the letter I left when I moved out, and then again to your face when you showed up here—that I was done.”
His mouth presses tight, and then he exhales.
“I’m listening now.”
I tilt my head, studying him.
“Are you, though?”
He swallows, and for a long moment he doesn’t speak.
Then, softer, “Look, Tori.”
His hand reaches across the table, covering mine.
Warm. Familiar. Heavy.
I don’t pull away, but I don’t lace my fingers with his either. I let it sit, let the weight of it press into my skin without pressing back.
“I’m sorry,” he says again, voice earnest.
“I’m so fucking sorry. And I love you. I’ve always loved you. I haven’t stopped therapy, and I won’t. I’ll keep going. We can go together, if you want. We can figure this out. If you’d just come home, we can fix this. Fixus. We can make it better this time.”
I stare at our joined hands.
And I feel… nothing.
No spark. No ache. No pull toward the boy I once swore was my forever.
He’s saying all the things I begged him for, year after year, but every word spoken is too little, too late. The emptiness between us is louder than his voice.
“If you’d just come home,” he pleads. “We can fix this. Together.”
My lips part, the words leaving before I can second-guess them.
“I’ll go back with you.”
Shock flickers across his face. He wasn’t expecting that.
Relief floods in after, softening him in a way I haven’t seen in years. His smile is small, genuine, unguarded.
Gratitude. Victory, maybe, but not smugness. Just thankfulness.
“You… you will?” he asks.
I nod once.
His smile spreads, full and bright. He looks like a man who just won back the world.
Chase doesn’t notice that I’m quiet for the rest of lunch. Doesn’t notice how I chew my pizza in silence, how my eyes drift to the window instead of him.
He fills the space with stories of Moraine, work, friends, all the pieces of his life I’ve been absent for.
He doesn’t ask about mine. Not once.
In his mind, this is already settled. We’re already back where we belong.
