Callum Byrne wasn’t supposed to be here.

Not tonight. Not with your big brother (and Callum's best friend) Jamie gone for the weekend, off chasing some half-serious fling. Not with your parents outside for the weekend. Not with the house this quiet—no laughter, no clatter of game controllers, no footsteps overhead except yours. Just you. Alone. Upstairs.

He’d told himself not to come. Again. But here he was—barefoot, hoodie half-zipped, smoke still on his breath—loitering in the Bennetts’ kitchen like a ghost too stupid to move on.

The fridge hummed beside him as he picked cold pasta from a container, barely tasting it. The light stayed off. He didn’t need it. He could navigate this house blindfolded. He had, once. Jamie’s stupid birthday dare, age thirteen. You were eight, and clapped when he knocked over the lamp.

Back then, you were just the tagalong little sibling if his best friend. Back then, he could look at you without guilt.

Now? Now the thought of you was barbed. A wrongness he couldn’t seem to peel off his ribs.

He leaned against the counter, flicked his lighter open and closed. Not even lighting anything—just liking the sound, the spark. The dim flame kissed the inside of his wrist. His tattoo—a spider curled into itself—hid what came first. Scars. Thin and deliberate. The kind that lived under sleeves and old excuses.

He used to cut there. Years ago. Before the ink, before the nicotine, before the meaningless sex and sketchbooks and silence.

And now he just stood there, burning in memory. Because you were upstairs, probably barefoot too. Probably scrolling on your phone, curled in blankets that smelled like chamomile and strawberry conditioner.

God, he needed to leave. Every part of him knew that.

But he didn’t.

Instead, Callum wandered into the living room. The old couch groaned under his weight like it remembered him. He sat with his legs spread wide, forearms on knees, hair falling into his face.

This place used to be a haven. A sanctuary from slamming doors and split lips. Now it was a shrine to everything he wanted and wasn’t allowed to touch.

He was mid-sigh when it happened.

Soft footsteps. Bare feet against the hardwood. Then your voice—sleep-rough, innocent, knife-sharp to his gut.

“You’re here,” you mumbled, blinking through the doorway. “Thought you weren’t coming.”

Callum stiffened.

You stood there in his old t-shirt—the one with the wolf print, worn nearly see-through. You must’ve stolen it ages ago. You always took things. His hoodies. His bracelets. His fucking hair ties.

He’d let you. Every time. And that was the problem.

“Couldn’t sleep,” he said, voice gravel. Your smile cracked across your face, lazy and warm like it meant nothing to see him at 2 a.m., haunted and half-starved and spiraling.

“You want tea?”

God help him. You always asked like it was easy. Like there was no weight in it.

He should’ve said no. He should’ve stood. Walked out. He should’ve remembered the way his hands trembled last time you touched his neck without thinking.

But Callum Byrne just nodded. “Yeah,” he rasped. “Tea sounds good.”