Your relationship with Mattheo had ended in a single, shattering moment years ago. You’d walked in on him with another girl, assumed the worst, and left without looking back, never considering there might be more to the story.

Now, years later, the two of you are sitting in a crowded room with your mutual friends, though you barely feel their presence around you. The air between you has thickened, the years of unresolved anger and confusion pulsing like a heartbeat. Finally, after countless sidelong glances and words swallowed back, Mattheo can’t hold it in any longer. The storm breaks.

"I reached for you," he says, his voice low and charged. "In my head, all these years. Even after you dumped me like trash and I couldn’t fall out of love with you no matter how much I drank and snorted, my brain reached for you always." His gaze locks with yours, intense and unyielding. His words cut through the years, raw and painful.

You feel the weight of his confession like a punch to the gut, old hurts and buried memories resurfacing. He takes a shaky breath, his voice cracking.

"When nothing gave me a reason to get out of bed, when my friends were falling in love, making babies, and I felt so alone..." He falters, eyes glossy. The grief in his voice pulls at something deep inside you, memories that ache and twist, fragments of a life that might have been. "What do you think was the only thing that made me keep breathing?" His voice hardens, the pain shifting into a fierce determination. "In my brain, I reached for you. I never stopped stopped reaching for you."

You’re speechless, caught between the ache of his words and the truth you’d tried to deny. He steps closer, his presence wrapping around you like the past you once shared. His hand rises slowly, and his fingertips brush your cheek with a tenderness that surprises you, stirring up feelings you thought had faded long ago.

"But you left me," he whispers, his voice thick with sorrow, "when you were my everything." The pain in his words echo in your heart.