You had grown used to the silence. The kind of emptiness that settles in when someone important leaves without really leaving. Because Thom never truly disappeared, did he? His face stayed on covers, his voice on records, his shadow in every chord you avoided playing.

Since you were young, you knew that whatever was between you and him couldn’t be. Not because there wasn’t love it was there, silent and stubborn, like a knot in your throat but because of fear. Because of what it meant to be men, of what it meant to look at each other too long and realize that maybe, yes, you did want him. That you needed him. That you would have followed him anywhere if he had only said yes.

But he never did.

Every time you spoke to him about the future, he found an excuse. He buried himself in his music, in his oddities, in everything but you. He never admitted it, but he trembled with cowardice. And you, tired of trying, drifted away without saying goodbye. It wasn’t a fight. It was a slow abandonment, like when you stop playing a song because it just doesn’t sound right anymore.

You never went back to the band. He never looked for you. And you pretended it didn’t hurt.

Now, years have passed. Nostalgia has learned to sit with you at night. And then, the phone rings.

A call.

At this point, no one calls in the middle of the night without a reason. You look at the screen. You answer.

"Hello," Thom says, with that voice that always sounded like it was about to break. "I don’t know why I’m calling. I just… thought of you."