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Something inside me folds in on itself.

Because that’s the cruelest part.

I know he means it. And I also know it doesn’t change anything.

Or maybe it changes everything.

My breath stutters, and I drag my sleeve across my cheeks, trying to stem the flood, trying to hold it all together.

“I don’t know what to do with this,” I whisper.

His eyes soften, devastation etched in every inch of him. “Neither do I.”

And just like that, we’re standing in the rubble of the almost-love we built and broke and maybe—maybe—are still trying to rebuild.

But we’re different now.

I’m different now.

Still me. But stitched together with new thread.

The silence between us hums again. Not empty this time. Full. Charged. Like a wire stretched tight between two hands too scared to let go but too bruised to hold on.

And for now, we don’t touch it.

We just let it buzz.

The silence settles again—thick and aching, like it knows it’s not welcome here but refuses to leave anyway.

I keep my eyes trained on the floor, watching my tears hit the rug like drops of ink bleeding into paper. All the words I want to say are tangled in my throat, knotted up with everything I’ve been holding in since the moment I woke up in a hospital room and realized he was still here.

Still him. Still mine. And somehow… not.

I don’t hear him move. I feel it.

A shift in the air. A pull in my chest. A magnet turned inward.

And then—softly, gently—his hand brushes mine.

He doesn’t force it. Doesn’t curl his fingers around mine right away like he used to, all sure and stubborn and bold.

He just waits.

And that’s what wrecks me. The waiting.

“Let me try,” he says, voice barely above a whisper. “Mya, just… let me try.”

My gaze lifts to his, and it’s like looking straight into the eye of a storm that’s learned how to stand still. He looks wrecked and hopeful and terrified, all at once.

“I know I didn’t choose you the way I should have back then,” he continues, his fingers ghosting over mine, tentative. “I let fear and pride and my own screwed-up head get in the way. But I’m here now. And I’m not walking away.”

I can’t speak.

Not when the truth in his voice cracks through my ribs like lightning.

“I don’t care what it takes,” he says, firmer now. “I’ll show up every day. I’ll write a hundred more songs if I have to. I’ll carry you when you’re tired and I’ll be quiet when you need space. Just… let me show you.”

He swallows hard.