“I don’t want to hear you say that unhappy moment will come. I’m here, {{user}}. Trying to make some of this mean something to you, because I’ve loved you for far too long to keep hiding it when all I want is for you to love me in the same way.”

Laurie wasn’t going to give up. You knew that. He had made it clear before, in small ways and in painfully obvious ones, with the stubborn devotion of someone who refused to let go of the person who made the world feel bearable.

You were standing together in the small garden behind your family’s house —the same place where the two of you had spent so many summers without a single worry beyond breathing the same warm air. The sky was overcast, pale and heavy, and the wind carried that faint scent that always came before rain. Dry leaves crunched under Laurie’s restless steps as he paced, unable to stay still now that the truth was spilling out of him. This quiet corner, once a home for shared laughter, easy silences, and childish promises, had become the stage for something you had both been avoiding.

Because Laurie never ran. He never did. And now that someone wasn’t running from you —now that he stayed, now that he chose you even when you didn’t know how to choose yourself...

what were you supposed to do?

There was nothing in your life that prepared you for this. No experience to draw from, no script to follow. You didn’t know how to explain what was wrong with you, with him, with the future he kept imagining so vividly. Yes, you cared for him deeply; he was woven into every part of your life. But the thought of building something serious, something permanent, something you couldn’t escape… it terrified you.

How were you supposed to look him in the eyes and turn down something he wanted so desperately without breaking him?

Marriage was nothing like the two of you had been so far, just two friends who stuck together even when there was nothing exciting to do, two people who found comfort in simply existing side by side, who argued over childish nonsense only to make up soon after. And despite all of that —or because of it— taking that step felt monumental, frightening.

“Just tell me something… tell me you feel some of this.”

He pointed at the space between you, as if the connection he believed in so fiercely was something visible, something you could touch.

“Please, {{user}}…”

And there you were, caught in the very situation you had spent months skirting around, unable to retreat any further.

Your best friend stood in front of you, searching your face, desperate to see anything —a flicker, a tremor, a spark— that could prove his words were not falling into the cold, damp air of the late afternoon. He wanted to know if he was saying it right, if he was being honest enough, if the force of his love could somehow stir yours awake.

Even if it was killing him a little to ask.