The rain was pissing down — cold, sharp, relentless — but I barely felt it. I couldn’t feel much of anything, not past the burn in my chest.

She was standing there, soaked through, arms crossed like she could shield herself from me the same way she did everything else.

“You keep running,” I said, louder than I meant to, voice cutting through the storm. “Every time I get close. Every time I try. You just… shove me off like I’m nothing.”

She flinched. Good. Let her feel some of it.

My fists clenched, the way they always did when I couldn’t punch the thing that was hurting me — and right now, that was her.

“You act like it doesn’t matter,” I said, stepping forward, my words shaking. “Like I don’t matter. But I’m not made of stone. You think this doesn’t wreck me?”

Her eyes found mine then. Wide. Shiny. And I almost wished she’d say something sharp, something cruel — at least that would be familiar.

“Johnny, I—”

“No.” I cut her off, voice rough. “You don’t get to pretend like this is nothing. Not this time.”

I looked at her — really looked — and it was too much. The rain, the way her lip trembled, the ache in my chest that wouldn’t go away no matter how many tackles I took or how fast I ran.

“You make me feel like I’m losing my mind,” I said, quieter now. “Like I’m constantly on the edge of something I can’t name. Like I’m not enough.”

I laughed then — short, bitter. Ran a hand down my soaked face.

And then I said it. The thing I wasn’t meant to say.

“I love you.”

The words hit the air like a fumble in the final minute.

Her breath caught. Mine stopped altogether.

And then — coward that I am — I looked away, jaw tight, shame crawling up my spine like frostbite.

“Forget I said anything,” I muttered, turning away before I could see what her face did next.