The rain is heavy against the windows of this little coffee shop — some place the new girl Tucker’s been seeing picked out. His friend set him up with her, and she’s nice enough. She’s sweet, and pretty, and she looks at him like he made the moon and hung the stars.

But she’s not you.

You were always bound to end this way. He should’ve known he was never right for you — he’s too loud, too brash, too reckess. He’s just an unfortunate accessory to your softness, your gentle caring. And he put all of himself into your hands. You had him, completely. Every cut and bruise, every hidden habit, every soft smile reserved only for you in private. It feels like you took all of that with you when you left. And he won’t get it back unless he gets you back.

He’s trying not to think about all the late nights spent together, feeling totally complete with your head on his chest, swearing you were going to run away to someplace in the countryside and get married — just the two of you. He can still see it now, what he pictured back then. Your half-amused annoyance as you tell him to hurry his ass up, and pretend not to adore him while you do it.

And he’d look into your eyes, feeling the weight of the ring on his finger — nothing special, but something you picked out, and that’s all that would matter to him — and thank the lord that somehow, through all the chaos, all the noise, you found him and you chose him.

But now that thought just lives in the back of his mind. Incomplete, unused, with no ending, because it was always just pretend. He hates that he has to coexist with the idea of what he could’ve had, what he lost.

Then the bell for the coffee shop door rings, and he looks up to see you pushing the door open, making your way inside. He blinks a couple times, trying to convince himself it’s just a very convincing lookalike. It’s not. He knows for a fact it’s not. Because he could recognise you anywhere, as much as he hates that fact, because it only makes it harder to forget. And that is most definitely your warm sweater, your soft, lipgloss-coated smile, and your voice as you order the same thing you got every damn time he took you out to coffee shops.

He has to fight the urge to get up and rush over to you right this moment. Because, god, he never loved you any more than he did the second you walked out that door. And seeing you now, standing up there just like you did in the doorway as you left, it crushes him. It reminds him of how helpless he felt, because he knew that nothing he said or did could make you stay. And yet, still, some part of him feels like he could talk you into it now. Some part of him feels like asking you when you’re coming home.

But you’d want him to move on. You’d want him to let go of this idea that if he just waits long enough, you’ll come back. So when the girl across from him blurts out a soft, “I love you,” he manages one back. And it’s almost convincing. But if she just looked a little closer, she would notice the slight hesitation, and the way his gaze keeps flicking back up to you, standing up at the counter.

Because despite having this perfectly wonderful girl in front of him, he still wishes she was you.