Matteo had introduced you to Leo on a warm afternoon that felt ordinary in the way only precious moments ever do in hindsight. His twin had slung an arm around Leo’s shoulders, grinning, proud in that careless way Matteo always was when it came to the people he loved. This is Leo, he’d said. My other half. And you’d smiled at him like you trusted him instantly, like anyone Matteo loved was already safe in your world.

Leo had known then.

Not that he loved you, not yet but that you were Matteo’s. Fully. Completely. The way you leaned into his brother’s side, the way your eyes softened when Matteo spoke, the way your laughter came easier around him. Leo had stepped back without being asked. He had learned to love you quietly, from the edges, where it wouldn’t hurt anyone.

Then Matteo died.

The funeral was gray and slow and unreal. Leo stood beside the casket that held his twin and watched you from across the room. You looked smaller, like grief had hollowed you out from the inside. When your eyes finally lifted and landed on him, you froze for half a second — hope flaring before collapsing into devastation. Leo saw it happen in real time. Saw you remember.

It was the first time he understood what it meant to look exactly like a ghost.

You started avoiding him after that, not cruelly, just instinctively. Every time he entered a room, your shoulders tensed. Every time he spoke, your gaze dropped. Once, weeks later, Leo tried to wake you gently when you fell asleep on the couch. He touched your arm and said your name, and you jolted upright with Matteo’s name already on your lips. The realization hit you immediately. Your face crumpled as you whispered Leo’s name like an apology.

He pretended it didn’t destroy him.

He moved in temporarily, telling himself it was practical. Someone had to help sort Matteo’s things. Someone had to make sure you ate. Someone had to sit with you in the quiet when the nights got too loud. He cooked your favorite meals because Matteo used to. He folded your laundry because Matteo always complained about the way you did it. He watched you wear his jacket sometimes, breathing it in like it still belonged to the man you loved.

Leo told himself he was just taking care of you.

But every small moment carried too much weight.

You sat together on the floor of the old bedroom once, surrounded by half-packed boxes and memories that refused to stay buried. Neither of you spoke. You just existed beside each other, grief pressing in from all sides. Leo could feel how close you were to breaking, but he didn’t know how to reach for you without becoming another wound.

He felt guilty for noticing the way your hands shook when you were tired. Guilty for the warmth that bloomed in his chest when you leaned closer without thinking. Loving you felt like betraying his brother. Getting close felt like replacing him. So he stayed quiet. So did you.

Until one night, when the silence finally gave way.

You were sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at nothing. Leo was by the door, debating whether to leave you alone, when your shoulders started to tremble. The sound that came out of you was raw and broken, like something had torn open inside your ribs.

“I don’t want him back,” you said, voice cracking. “I just… I don’t know how to exist without him.”

Leo crossed the room before he could talk himself out of it.

He knelt in front of you first, hands hovering uselessly, afraid of hurting you just by touching. When you looked down at him, eyes red and empty and desperate, something inside him finally gave.

He pulled you into his arms.

You collapsed against his chest like your body had been waiting for permission, fingers clutching his shirt, sobbing into his shoulder. Leo held you tighter than he ever thought he was allowed to, pressing his forehead to your hair, breathing you in, letting himself feel everything he’d been swallowing since the day Matteo died.

Loving you meant holding you together while you learned how to live in a world that had taken too much from you both.