“You still look at me with hate,” he says quietly, with that half-smile that always hid an open wound.

You sit down without answering. You’ve got plenty to say to him, but none of it is worth it tonight. Not before the big concert. Not before stepping back on stage like those words in the dark were never spoken. Like he wasn’t the one who let you walk away.

The silence between you isn’t awkward. It’s heavy. Full of all the times you didn’t reach out to each other. “You were never just the bassist, you know that, right?” he murmurs, like he’s breaking inside. Like he’s talking to you, but also to someone else: to the Liam still stuck in ’97, watching you backstage as you tuned your bass with that intense focus that used to drive him mad. “You were everything. And I didn’t know how to fight for that.”

His fingers spin the glass in his hands. They don’t tremble, but there’s a tightness in his jaw you know too well. It’s the gesture he made when he held things back. When he didn’t want to say more. When it hurt.

“You were the fucking love of my life,” he confesses, and this time he doesn’t look at you. Because if he did, he’d know he still loves you.