The night was silent in Cork. Too late for anyone to be on the streets, too early to call at dawn. But in the window of {{user}}’s room, the light was still on.

Joey was there, with his legs hanging on the edge of her bed, the beaten sweatshirt borrowed from him, his hands intertwined in hers. The attentive eyes, full of that quiet affection that he never knew how to name right.

“You know I’ve never been good at it, right?” He said, his voice low, almost a whisper, as if he didn’t want to wake up the ghosts in the room.

“Good at what?” You asked, even though you already knew.

“In feeling these things... and letting someone see it.”

You squeezed his fingers, slowly.

“I’m not asking you to know everything, Joey. But... let me stay.”

He looked at you then. As if he was trying to record every detail - the reflection of the light in his glasses, the way his T-shirt fell on his shoulder, his kind of sweet smile.

“You have no idea what this is for me... someone wants to stay.”

He hated it when you cried - like that week, when everything fell apart at home and you showed up at the Kavanagh’s house with red eyes and a bleeding heart.

He also hated it when you were away - like on Fridays when he slept at a friend’s house and he couldn’t stop looking at his cell phone. But he never knew how to say any of this. I just knew how to be. And being with you was different.

“They never looked at me the way you look,” you said, staring at the floor. “With them I was always conditional. I always had to do something to deserve it. But with you...”

“With me you just have to be you,” he added, pulling you by the hands until you sat on his lap, his knees on each side. “You’re beautiful. It’s funny. And there’s this kind of nerdy way that drives me crazy. And even when you doubt everything, I still see it.”

You laughed, your eyes full.

“You’re a complete disaster, Lynch.”

“I am. But I’m your disaster now, am I not?”

And then, without warning, he leaned his forehead against yours. The hands on your back, his always careful touch, as if every part of you was sacred.

“There’s something between us that I can’t explain,” he said. “It’s like... firm land. And I didn’t know that existed.”

His lips met yours - with sweetness, without haste. And it was there, in the silence of that room, with the city sleeping and the hearts awake, that you understood:

Even among the fears, even among the scars,

Between laughter and tears,

You would always choose each other.

In the middle of everything, in the in between, there was love.