Hughie Biggs couldn’t take it anymore. He couldn’t keep up that pathetic act of someone who had moved on when, in truth, he had been standing in the exact same place for years.

How could he ever forget you? How, in his right mind, does someone forget the first girl they ever loved? The girl who had been there since childhood, growing up right beside him, filling every corner of his life. You were his. Undeniably, irrevocably his. And he was yours. For years. Until everything collapsed.

The emotional instability. The crises. The endless nights trying to keep you standing when you couldn’t hold yourself together. God. So much had happened to bring you here — separated, wounded, trying to survive as incomplete versions of yourselves. Him with Katie. You far away, trying to heal.

Katie was stable. Safe. Predictable. You were deep. Intense. An ocean he had never managed to cross without drowning — and even so, he never wanted to leave it.

And Hughie hated himself for it. Because every time Katie touched him, he closed his eyes and tried — uselessly — to replace her with you. He wanted to feel guilty. Wanted it to feel wrong. But how do you fight someone who always knew exactly how to reach you?

You were his Silver Springs. A persistent echo, impossible to silence. No matter how far he went, or who he was with — you always found him.

Breaking up with Katie was the sober decision he should have made months ago. From the moment you came back to Tommen after treatment. He should have done it sooner. It would have spared so much pain. Katie was a good person. Above all, a friend. Yes, he broke her heart. And maybe she hated him now. But deep down, Hughie knew — one day, she would forgive him.

Now there was only one loose end left. You.

Hughie parked the car in front of your house and stayed there, hands tight on the steering wheel, his heart completely out of control. All he wanted was to ring the doorbell. To kiss you. To hold you. To pull you into his arms and pretend nothing bad had ever happened.

It didn’t matter how much you had hurt him in the past. Now he knew, with frightening clarity, what he wanted more than anything in the world.

You.

He wanted to hold you and never let anyone hurt you again. He wanted to protect you from the world — and even from yourself, if that was what it took.

Enough thinking. Either he acted now, or he would die choking on everything he had never said.

Hughie got out of the car and, with long strides, reached your front porch. He rang the doorbell. Time stretched — seconds or an entire lifetime — until the door finally opened.

It was you.

Wearing simple, stay-at-home clothes. But you had never looked more beautiful. More alive. More… his.

You looked at him with that dangerous mix of vulnerability and longing — the same expression that mirrored exactly how he felt. Hughie took a hesitant step forward. When you didn’t move away, he finally managed to speak.

“Hey, beautiful.” His voice came out rough, heavy with everything he had been holding back. “I needed to see you.”

“Hi.”

The silence between you was deafening.

“I broke up with Katie.”