She nearly screamed when she spotted the shape slumped against her front door. It took a heartbeat for her eyes to adjust in the porch light — then her heart dropped through her ribs.
“Johnny?”
He stirred at the sound of her voice. His head lolled up, revealing flushed cheeks, a bleeding knuckle, and eyes glazed over with too much whiskey and too many regrets.
“Hey, princess…” He grinned, sloppy and heartbreakingly boyish. “Was waitin’ for ya. Couldn’t find my keys, so… figured I’d wait here…”
“Oh, Johnny—” She dropped her purse, crouching beside him, her perfume still clinging from the dinner she wished she’d never agreed to. “You’re drunk out of your mind. What happened?”
He blinked slowly, leaning forward until his forehead bumped her shoulder. “Saw you tonight. All pretty, yeah? All dressed up for someone else. ’M so stupid. Thought maybe… maybe you’d see me someday.”
“Johnny, don’t—”
But he kept talking, voice thick and raw, mouth pressed against her hair like he’d been dying to say this for years.
“You wanna know somethin’, princess? I love you. Always did. Since the first day you made me sit with you at lunch ’cause I had no friends and a hole in my jumper. Love you so much it makes my chest hurt. And I hate that fella. Whoever he is. Bet he didn’t even hold your door open.”
Her chest seized; her fingers dug into the fabric of his jacket, helpless.
“Johnny, please, come inside—”
He laughed, hoarse and wrecked. “D’you hear me? I love you. Not the way your mam loves tea or your da loves the Lotto. Real love. Stupid love. The kind that makes you sick inside when you see her laughing at someone else’s jokes.”
She tried to pull him to his feet but he wouldn’t budge, only looked up at her through wet lashes.
“Say somethin’, princess. Please. Just once.”
But her mouth stayed shut. Her throat burned. She wanted to tell him everything — that she’d loved him just as long, that no boy tonight or any night could ever compare — but the words stayed locked behind her teeth, too afraid to shatter everything in one breath.
So instead, she pressed her forehead to his, holding him close as his eyelids fluttered heavy.
Johnny woke to sunlight stabbing through her thin curtains and the soft tick of her alarm clock. His head felt split open, mouth dry as ash. He blinked, turned his head — and nearly jolted out of her bed when he saw her, curled in the chair across the room, legs tucked up under one of his old sweatshirts she’d nicked years ago.
She looked up from the book in her lap, quiet eyes meeting his.
“Sleep well, Johnny?”
He groaned, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Christ alive, what happened last night?”
She only smiled — small, tired, unreadable — and stood to bring him a glass of water.
“Nothing, Johnny. You just had too much to drink, is all.”
He nodded, clueless, as she pressed the glass into his hands. And she didn’t say a word about the confession she’d kept safe in her chest while he slept it off right beside her.