The rain pours around you, soaking through your clothes, but you don’t move. You can’t. Not with Theodore standing there, his face half-hidden in the shadows, his eyes burning with something you can’t quite name—hurt, fury, exhaustion.

“I never needed you like I do right now,” you say, the words barely above a whisper. You hate the way your voice shakes, how raw it sounds. But it’s the truth. And the truth has always been the hardest thing between you and Theodore.

He exhales sharply, almost like a laugh, but there’s no humor in it. Only bitterness.

“I never hated you as much as I do now.”

You knew there was anger—there always was between the two of you—but hearing it like this, so sharp and unfiltered, makes something crack inside you.

For years, everything between you has been a push and pull, a battlefield of unspoken words and wounds neither of you ever let heal. You left when you shouldn’t have. He stayed when he should have walked away. And yet, somehow, neither of you ever truly let go.

The rain keeps falling, washing away nothing.

“You don’t mean that,” you say, but it’s a weak defense.

Theodore shakes his head, running a hand through his wet hair. “Don’t I?” His voice is low, rough, the way it always gets when he’s trying not to break. “You can’t keep doing this—disappearing, coming back, acting like I’m supposed to just—” He stops himself, looking away as if meeting your eyes would be too much.

But he doesn’t leave.

And neither do you.

Because despite the fury in his words, despite the ache in your chest, despite everything—you are still here. Stuck in the same gravity that has always pulled you toward each other, no matter how much damage it does.

“I don’t know how to stop,” you admit.

Theodore exhales, shaking his head. “Neither do I.”

So you stand there, together in the storm, bound by something neither of you can fix—but neither of you can let go.