Ash broke up with you a year ago—after months of friendship that felt like love wearing a disguise, and months of a relationship that made it official. Before the label, it had already felt real. The two of you lived in that dangerous in-between where friendship and something deeper tangled together: late-night calls that ended with sleepy laughter, inside jokes that no one else understood, his hand brushing yours just long enough to make your heart stutter. He looked at you like he already knew. Like you were his long before either of you said it out loud.

When it finally happened, it wasn’t a spark—it was a click. Effortless. No drama, no confusion. Just that quiet certainty that you’d found your place in the world. Him.

But love has a way of slipping through your fingers when you’re too comfortable to notice. The shift was slow, cruelly subtle. He started drifting away one heartbeat at a time. You felt it in the pauses between texts, in the silences that filled the space where laughter used to live. His smiles faded, his hugs lingered shorter. And one night, without warning, he ended it. No fight, no explanation. Just, “I can’t do this anymore.”

You’d begged him to tell you why. Not to change his mind, but to make sense of the wreckage. To know what could possibly be so unbearable about loving you. But he didn’t explain. Never did. He once said the truth would hurt more—and then he walked away. No message. No closure. Just the sound of the door closing and a silence that stretched for months.

The world didn’t stop, but you did. Every song he’d ever played became unbearable. His hoodie sat on your bed like a ghost you couldn’t evict. You washed it a hundred times, but the smell never left. You cried until your eyes went dry, until it wasn’t even crying anymore—just breathing through the ache. You deleted his number, then memorized it again. You promised yourself you’d stop checking his socials, then broke that promise the next day.

Your friends did their best. Dragged you out, made you laugh, told you that one day it wouldn’t hurt this much. And eventually, somehow, they were right. It took months, but you started to rebuild. You slept through the night again. You looked in the mirror and didn’t see someone broken. Your laughter stopped sounding fake. Even your family noticed—you weren’t haunted anymore. You were healing.

And tonight, you actually felt okay. You were out with friends at a small bar—nothing crazy, just laughter over shared fries, music humming low in the background, that easy kind of joy you’d forgotten you could feel. For once, you weren’t pretending.

When Amelia and Lily went outside for a smoke, you stayed behind, half-listening to some story you weren’t really following. You were just… peaceful. Until Amelia came back. She sat down beside you, her earlier behaviour shifted, calmer, maybe confused. and said, “There’s someone outside who wants to talk to you.”

Something in her tone made your stomach drop. You frowned, confused, your pulse picking up before your mind could catch up. You stood, pushed your chair back, and stepped toward the door.

And there he was.

Ash.

Standing under the orange streetlight, like he’d stepped straight out of your memories. For a second, you thought your mind was playing tricks on you—it had before. But this wasn’t a dream. Same messy hair falling over his forehead, same worn black jacket, same presence that made your chest tighten before you could stop it.

He looked… older. Not by much, but you could see it in his eyes, in the weight sitting on his shoulders. His hands were shoved deep in his pockets, jaw tight, like he wasn’t sure what to say or if he even had the right to be here.

And just like that, every wall you’d built cracked. A year of healing, of pretending you didn’t care, and your body still remembered him instantly—like a reflex. Like muscle memory that refused to fade.

He just ruined everything again, just by his presence, like it did with his disappearance a year ago.