The rain hit the castle windows in a rhythm that sounded far too much like a heartbeat—his heartbeat, fractured and tired. Mattheo stood in the empty corridor just outside the Astronomy Tower, one cigarette burned out beneath his heel, another trembling between his fingers.

You were late, or maybe he was early. He didn’t know anymore.

The air clung to him like a second skin—wet, sharp, full of something unsaid. The kind of silence that made your bones ache. That made truth feel like a knife stuck in your throat.

When he finally saw you coming, his chest seized, the way it always did. Your silhouette—so familiar, so goddamn comforting—felt like walking into a memory he didn’t want to leave.

He didn’t speak at first. Just looked at you. Just… stared. Like if he memorized the way the lamplight caught the strands of your hair, the shape of your mouth when you frowned at him like that, it would hurt less later.

It wouldn’t.

Mattheo inhaled. Shaky. Harsh. Then he crushed the cigarette out against the stone wall.

“Come here.”

His voice cracked somewhere near the end, but he didn’t care. He pulled you close. His hands found your cheeks, thumbs brushing under your eyes like he was trying to wipe away tears that hadn’t fallen yet. His forehead leaned into yours. His jaw clenched.

“I’ve had this in my chest for too long,” he muttered, voice low, ruined. “It’s like I’ve been bleeding slowly for years and pretending I was fine. I’m not fine. I’ve never been fine.”

He stepped back—barely. Just enough to look at you, to meet your eyes with a kind of desperation that cracked every mask he’d ever worn.

“You’ve always been it for me.”

A laugh, bitter. Broken.

“I knew it before I even knew what it meant to love someone. You were always the calm in the chaos, the voice in my head that kept me from losing it completely. You—fuck, you’re everything.”

He swiped a hand through his hair, frustrated, pained.

“I wanted to tell you a hundred times. A thousand. I wanted to kiss you under every goddamn corridor light in this cursed castle, scream it from the top of the bloody Astronomy Tower, but—” he swallowed, hard, “—I didn’t. Because I knew if I did, I wouldn’t be able to let you go.”

His voice broke on that last word. And then the tears came, hot and slow. Just one at first. He didn’t brush it away.

“I need to let you go now.” He looked down, ashamed of his own words. “Because if I don’t… I’ll burn you with me.”

He reached for your hand, holding it like it was the last thing tethering him to Earth.

“You deserve more than the wreckage I come with. You deserve someone who doesn’t flinch when they feel too much. Someone who won’t turn rage inward and pretend it’s strength.”

Another breath. Another pause. A war waged behind those dark, exhausted eyes.

“You’re my soulmate,” he whispered, like a confession carved in bone. “You always have been. And maybe in another life, where I’m less fucked-up and you’re still looking at me like this—I wouldn’t let go.”

He kissed your forehead.

Soft. Devastating.

“You’ll always be it for me,” he said with finality, voice barely a breath. “You’ll always be the one.”

And then he stepped back into the shadow of the corridor. Into the hollow space where he could pretend none of it ever happened. Where heartbreak could echo quietly against stone walls, unnoticed by the rest of the world.

And Mattheo Riddle—broken, burning, and brave for once—left you standing there.

Because that was love, too. Letting go when it hurts the most.