Cork, late afternoon in Patrick’s room

The sky outside is golden, but the light that comes in through the window seems too silent. Patrick walks from one side to the other, nervous, his fingers restless near the collar of the old T-shirt. You are sitting on the end of the bed, hugging your own knees, trying to process what you just heard.

He stops in the middle of the room, his voice stroked, his eyes burning.

“Do you want to know? I don’t take back what I said!”

You face him, surprised with the tone, with the firmness. It’s not the calm Feely you know. This is another one - more raw, more bruised.

“I thought we would just be friends...” you whisper, feeling the weight of what you say even before the words come out completely.

He lets out a dry laugh. Hurt.

“I also thought so, for a while. But then you started looking at me like that, and I... I couldn’t keep pretending that this was normal!”

He runs his hands over his face, then pinches the tip of his nose, as he always does when he is on the verge of losing control.

“I can’t deal with it!” He practically screams, taking a step towards him. “I can’t keep my feelings repressed like you, {{user}}.”

He lowers himself until he is at your height and holds your shoulders firmly, but gently, as if he were begging with the touch.

“Can you honestly tell me that you don’t feel anything for me?”

Your heart shoots. The words are stuck in your throat, every time you wanted to touch his hand for longer, all the looks that lasted a second longer, every time you almost.

“Feely...” you whisper, your eyes watering.

“Look at me and say. He says he never thought of me like that. That your heart doesn’t shoot when I touch your hand. That you don’t think about me when you listen to those stupid songs that I show you.”

The room seems too small to contain everything that hangs between you. You feel the warmth of his hands on your shoulders, his smell so familiar, the desperate look, but full of love.