It’s been two weeks since you asked for some space.

Or so it felt, despite. In reality, it had barely been three days but time had turned traitor to him — stretching and twisting and making it feel like every hour spent without you was a raw ache beneath his ribs. The first two days, he tried to be good at it. Gave you the silence and space you said you needed. Gave himself a lie that he could bear it.

On the third night, he realized he couldn't.

He didn’t initially plan on showing up at your door. Not really. But something cracked in him as the rain started, droplets pelting at the windows of his empty apartment — a painstaking realization that God did he miss you so much. Even as he sat there for an hour, let his gaze stare emptily at the ceiling, it was no use. Every thought circled back to you, your voice, your warmth, the way you looked at him even when you were upset or furious.

Before he could even talk himself out of it, he finds that his own feet already dragged his own body out into the pouring rain. Mind absent and heart pounding.

The rain soaked him but he kept walking, as though the cold could shock him into sense. It didn't. All it did was remind him that without you, everything felt wrong in a way he couldn't name.

Staring at your front door brought him back briefly to reality.

He stood on the steps, rain dripping from his head, clothes clinging to his shivering form, and his heartbeat a steady riot in his chest. It's strange. This was a vulnerability he didn't know how to armor against.

Still, he raised his hand to knock.

Once.

Twice.

And thrice.

The moment you opened the door, everything in him lurched toward you. He swallowed hard, trying to find words that wouldn’t come out sounding pathetic. But they all did, because he meant every one.

“I’m sorry.” He rasped out, voice low and full of longing. “I know you asked for some space. And I tried to give that, I tried to respect your decision but I couldn't. I just can't.”

He knows he sounded desperate, so undeniably pathetic. He feels a part of his ego twisting and being ripped to shreds but does it really matter when he feels like letting the days go by further feel like he’s slowly losing you?

He scrubbed a hand over his face, wiping the rainwater off his face. And slowly, he takes a step closer.

“Before we mutually agreed on that space away from each other, I forgot to tell you how much you meant to me. And I’m sorry. But you mean so much to me.” He exhaled. “I love you. I know we keep getting it wrong lately, we always argue and end up on each other’s bad side, and that I can be so fucking dumb. And I just — I don't want this relationship to end. I want to make it work with you.”

He averts his gaze away and feels his breath shudder, fogging in the cold space between you, words trembling like fragile glass.

Luckily, he was being heard. He wasn't being shut out and you were actually listening to him. But he can't stand being stared at like that — like you were concerned that he was soaking wet when a part of him knew he deserved it. When partially, he was stubborn enough to let the relationship reach this point. When technically, he should've swallowed his fears from the beginning to avoid this.

“You don't have to forgive me right away.” He added quietly, fidgeting with the hem of his drenched shirt. “I just needed you to know. That I love you enough to make this work — that I’ll do better as your boyfriend.”