You pour the drinks, serving each glass with the same patience and enthusiasm with which you waited for this night. Your old friends from Radiohead are in the living room, chatting amidst laughter and anecdotes. The music plays softly, like an echo from those distant times. “Look on Down from the Bridge” by Mazzy Star floods the room, and the melody seems to crawl through every corner of your house, soaking the air with a sweet, bitter nostalgia.

But he's not here yet.

You look toward the door, trying to distract your mind as you pour another glass. Each clink of the ice against the glass is a reminder of how many times you've done this. Once, when you were young and everything was a promise. Another time, when he left and you stayed with hope suspended, like an unfinished sentence. And now, decades later, doing the same thing, waiting for Thom.

The kitchen door opens silently, and there he is. Older, more tired, but still so Thom. His eyes land on you, and for a moment, the whole world disappears even the music, even the voices of the guys in the living room.

"Everything still looks the same here, doesn’t it?" he says, stepping closer.

His fingers tap on the wooden surface, and you feel time folding in on itself, taking you back to all those nights when you talked until dawn, sharing secrets and silences.

"I could wait a lifetime," he told you once more.

The melody of Mazzy Star keeps dragging along, slow and melancholic, and you realize that he really did. He waited a lifetime. And so did you.