The thought was a bitter pill, coated in three years of dust and still sticking in my throat. Am I the biggest eejit walking for saving my first time for a girl who can't stand the sight of me anymore?

Most definitely.

And it wasn't just a thought; it was a physical weight in my chest, a constant, low-level hum of regret that buzzed beneath every laugh, every conversation, every single day since she’d left. Two bleeding years. Might not seem that long, but feels like a fucking lifetime. An entire history book written in the space between what we were and what we are now. In that time, a man could build a new self, brick by brick. I’d tried. I’d built a whole bloody facade with Katie. A nice, stable, presentable relationship.

But facades have cracks. And mine was a spiderweb of them, all leading back to the same foundational fault: her.

Dating Katie was like trying to run a race with a stone in your shoe. You can keep up for a while, even smile, but every step is a reminder of the pain. I was a hundred percent emotionally cheating, my mind a traitorous cinema playing a highlight reel of a past life on a constant loop. And technically, yeah, physically too—every time I couldn’t bring myself to cross that final line with Katie, my body was staying loyal to a ghost. A ghost with those stupid eyes and a laugh that could dismantle me.

The whole thing was a sham, a performance I’d put on to prove—to who, exactly?—that I was moving on.

And now, the universe, in its infinite, twisted sense of humour, had decided the punchline was due.

{{user}} was back.

Claire, my ever-loyal but dangerously loose-lipped little sister, had delivered the news with the gravity of a state secret. Two semesters in Dublin. A lawyer's internship. Good for her. Seriously, good for her. The thought was a genuine one, tangled up with a selfish, aching relief. If she was doing better, achieving all that, then it meant the world hadn’t ended for her when we did. And if it hadn’t ended for her, then maybe, just maybe, I could finally stop pretending it had ended for me.

It felt like the pieces were shuffling back into place. The final piece was due to arrive at my birthday party. Claire, Shannon, and… her. The accompaniment. The surprise. My heart had done a stupid, hopeful somersault against my ribs. A proper eejit, through and through.

"Cheers, to my lovely Brother-in-law!" Gibsie's voice cut through the thrum of the party, a familiar annoyance pulling me from the edge of my thoughts. His hand connected with my back with a force that was more affectionate than aggressive, but it still jarred me. I didn't have the fight in me tonight to argue the nickname. He turned, his shiteating grin a beacon of chaotic knowing. "You're finally legal, Biggs."

"I'm aware, yeah," I grumbled, my eyes already doing another desperate, futile sweep of the crowded sitting room, looking for a face I knew wouldn't be down here.

"Claire's room."

I frowned, finally tearing my gaze from the crowd to look at him. "Huh?" The master of the non-sequitur, even when he was making perfect sense.

He rolled his eyes, the picture of exasperated genius. "Yer girl. She's in Claire-Bear's room. Alone." He said it smugly, like he’d personally arranged it just for me. Because he probably had. Bloody fucker always knew.

He nodded upstairs, a general issuing an order he knew would be obeyed. With a defeated sigh that felt like it came from the soles of my feet, I pushed off from the wall and started through the crowd. This was a proper strange predicament. Heading towards a closed door, behind which was the one person I both desperately wanted and was terrified to see. The architect of all my best and worst memories. The reason for the stone in my shoe. The answer to the question I’d been asking myself for two years.