I knew the second I saw her face that I’d fucked it.

Arms crossed, jaw tight, eyes that had always looked at me soft now cold and guarded. Like she was ready to bolt the second I spoke.

I swallow hard. “What’s wrong?”

{{user}} let’s out a sharp, bitter laugh. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Play dumb.”

I blink. Confused, stomach twisting. “I’m not—”

“Oh, really?” Her head tilts. “So you didn’t tell Gregory Murray that putting up with me I was a pain in the hole?”

I freeze.

Ah, fuck.

It had been a throwaway thing. Said in passing, casual, the kind of thing lads said to each other when they didn’t want to talk about things properly. He’d asked if we were a thing—if he should go for it—and I’d panicked. Blurted out something dumb. Something to make him not go for it.

But looking at her now, I realise how that must’ve sounded. How I must’ve sounded.

“That’s not—” I rake a hand through my hair. “That’s not what I meant.”

She scoffs. “Then what did you mean?”

I step closer. “I just—I didn’t want him—”

“You didn’t want him what, Tadhg?” Her voice wobbles. “To think I was worth it? I’m so fucking sorry that I’m a fucking liability for you. That I’m more pain than I’m worth. Trust me, I won’t burden you anymore.”

Snark was {{user}}’s default. Pain, however, was a constant in her eyes. Sometimes I’d blow it away. But it gutted me to know I was the cause this time.

My stomach caves in.

No. No, no, no.

I shake my head fast. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Then how did you mean it?” Her eyes shine. And I know the pain in there. I hurt her. When I didn’t even mean it like that.

I hate it.

Hate that I did this. That I made her look at me like I was just another person who didn’t care, when the truth was—

“I love you.”

The words rip out of me, raw and desperate, like saying them might fix this, might make her stay. I do mean them. I did love {{user}}. I helped her because her pain called to my own. I breathed for her because that help went from a sort of solidarity to because I loved her.