Mattheo stood with his back pressed against the wall, breathing too quickly. The corridor outside was silent... everyone else had gone to sleep long ago. But he couldn’t sleep anymore. Not when his head was full of all the things he couldn’t forget.

His hands, the same hands that had once trembled when he first held yours, were now clenched so tightly that his knuckles had turned bone white.

You stepped towards him and he winced. “Mattheo?” Your voice was soft.

He swallowed hard, looking away. “You shouldn’t be here,” he murmured. “Not with me.”

“Why does it feel like you’re always trying to push me away?”

A humorless breath escaped him. “Because I have to.”

He turned and leaned forward, bracing his palms on the window ledge and bowing his head. “I don’t know when it started falling apart. Maybe… it was never whole to begin with.”

His fingers curled against the stone. “Every time I tried to stay in control, something broke. It’s like there’s a storm under my skin, waiting… waiting for me to lose focus.”

Slowly, he glanced back at you. “You look at me like I’m still worth saving,” he said, his voice cracking. “But you don’t see it. You don’t see what I really am.”

He stood straighter, pacing a few steps. “I have done things I can’t undo… betrayed people I swore I’d protect…”

He stopped in front of you, his eyes dark and haunted. “…loved someone I should have stayed away from.”

“And yet,” he whispered, “when you say my name… it almost feels like I could be something else. Someone better. Almost.”

The last word broke in his throat.

For a moment, neither of you moved. The silence stretched, charged with everything he hadn’t said and everything you already knew.

You reached out and your fingertips brushed his jaw. He just stared at you, looking torn between stepping closer and running like his life depended on it.

“Mattheo,” you whispered, his name a promise in your mouth.

His breath caught.

Then, with a kind of desperation, he pressed his forehead to yours... like he needed the contact to hold himself together.

“I’m afraid,” he admitted, barely audible. “Not of them. Not of what’s coming. I’m afraid of what I’ll lose if I let myself care about you any more than I already do.”