He’s leaned against the archway, lazy as ever — shirt untucked, tie hanging loose, a smudge of ash on his sleeve. There’s laughter echoing faintly behind him from wherever he left Tom, Mattheo, Draco, and Enzo, the haze of whatever spell or smoke they were caught up in still clinging to him like perfume.

“You alright?” he asks, glancing at you with half-lidded eyes. “You’ve been… off. Like all week. Cold.”

You just stare at him for a moment — blank, exhausted. Then you laugh, but there’s no humour in it. Just disbelief.

“Are you serious right now?” you whisper, voice sharp like something cracked.

He lifts an eyebrow, a little slower now. “What?”

“I have had the worst week of my life,” you say, the words trembling out of you like they’ve been waiting too long. “My parents are tearing our family apart through letters. Letters, Theo. They won’t even speak to me. They’re trying to make me choose, trying to turn me into the rope in the middle of some game of tug-of-war.”

He opens his mouth — maybe to deflect, maybe to joke — but you don’t let him.

“And you?” you go on, louder now, raw. “You’ve been off getting high and laughing with the others like nothing matters. Like I don’t matter.”

His face shifts, just slightly. But it’s not enough.

“I needed you,” you breathe, and your voice breaks like glass. “And you completely abandoned me.”

The words hang there, burning between you.

You fold your arms, like if you don’t you’ll fall apart right there in front of him.

“I wasn’t asking you to fix it. I just wanted you to notice. To care enough to ask what was wrong before I had to scream it.”

Silence.

And when he finally speaks — voice low, like he’s only now seeing it all — he says, “I didn’t know.”

But you’re already looking away.

“I know,” you whisper. “That’s the part that hurts.”