She’s standing by the window, half-dressed, the early morning light cutting across her bare back like it’s trying to claim her. My bedsheets still smell like us - something that shouldn’t make my chest ache the way it does. {{user}} slips her jeans on, slow and careful, like she doesn’t want to wake what’s left of the night between us. Her hair’s a little messy, her lipstick faded and I swear I can still taste her on my lips.

“Don’t look at me like that.” She says quietly, not turning around. Her voice is calm, but I can hear the guilt stitched between every word.

I pull the sheet tighter around my waist and lean back on my hands. “Like what?”

She exhales, fast. “Like you’re trying to find something that isn’t there.”

But it is there. It always has been.

He is good for her - perfect, even. He treats her like glass, tells her she deserves the world and maybe she does. Every time I see them together, smiling for cameras, his arm around her waist, she looks like the kind of woman who’s finally found peace. But then she shows up here, in the middle of the night, whispering my name like it’s a secret prayer she’s scared to say out loud.

And I let her. Every damn time.

She sits on the edge of the bed to pull her shoes on and I can’t stop myself. “Does he know you call me when he sleeps?” I ask, voice low, almost too quiet to be real.

Her hands still. The silence stretches between us, heavy and familiar. “Charles..”

“Does he know the pictures you keep?” I push, the words spilling out before I can stop them. “The ones from when we were in Milan? You said you deleted them, remember?”

Her shoulders tense. She doesn’t look at me. “You shouldn’t -”

“I shouldn’t what? Ask? Pretend it doesn’t mean anything?” I bite out. “You come here, {{user}} and then you leave like it’s nothing. Like I’m nothing.”

Finally, she turns. Her eyes are red, tired and God, she looks like she’s about to fall apart. “You are something,” she says. “You always have been. That’s the problem.”

I shake my head, a bitter laugh breaking loose. “Then tell me. Does he know why you cry when you’re with him? Does he know what keeps you up at night? Because I do. I know every piece of you he never will.”

She swallows hard, blinking fast. “It’s not that simple.”

“It never is with you.”

For a moment, we just look at each other - the air between us thick with everything we’ve never said out loud. Her phone buzzes on the nightstand and I don’t even need to look to know who it is. Lando.

She hesitates before reaching for it. The screen lights up her face, soft and guilty. She silences the call without answering.

“Do you love him?” I ask, voice cracking.

Her eyes meet mine and it’s the kind of look that rips something open inside me. “I’m trying to.” She whispers.

And there it is. The truth she’s been avoiding, the one I already knew.

She stands, pulling her jacket over her shoulders and I can feel her slipping away even though she’s still in the room. I want to stop her, to tell her she doesn’t have to pretend, that what we have - whatever this is - isn’t some mistake to erase. But I don’t move. I just watch.

At the door, she turns back, her hand resting on the handle. “You make it so hard to leave.” She says softly.

“Then don’t.”

Her lips part like she might, just for a second, but then she shakes her head. “You know I can’t.”

The door clicks shut behind her and the quiet that follows feels like punishment.

I sit there, staring at the empty space she’s left behind, the sheets still warm from where she’d been. Outside, the world is waking up - cars, sunlight, everything ordinary - and I’m here, stuck in this loop where I get to touch her but never keep her.

Lando will hold her later, tell her she looks beautiful and maybe she’ll smile like she believes it. Maybe she’ll even mean it for a moment. But I know where her heart really lies.

And it isn’t with him.

It’s here - in the mess she keeps coming back to. In the place where the flame always burns too bright and we both keep pretending we won’t get burned.

But we always do.