Page 43 of Until The Lights Go Out

“Yeah,” he agreed.

Another pause.

Then, “You still talk too much when you’re nervous.”

I turned my head toward him. “You still pretend you don’t care about anything.”

“I don’t pretend.”

“Liar.”

His lips twitched.

“I didn’t think I’d see you again,” I admitted quietly.

“Yeah,” he said. “Me neither.”

“I mean it.” My fingers twisted into the sheets, thinking about the crash and how I stared at the door in the hospital for weeks hoping he would show. “It’s been…such a long time.” I swallowed. “You just…disappeared, Theo.”

The words slipped out before I could stop them. The air shifted instantly, and he went still beside me.

“I didn’t disappear,” he said after a moment, voice quieter. “I left. I couldn’t⁠—.”

“That’s the same thing.”

“No,” he said, sharper, “it’s not.”

I pushed myself up slightly on one elbow, turning toward him. “It felt like it.”

He exhales slowly, dragging a hand over his face. “Yeah. I figured it might.”

“Then why⁠—”

“I didn’t think you’d care.” The words landed heavy between us.

I blinked at him. “Are you serious?”

He finally turned his head, meeting my eyes. There it was again—that intensity. That same look from years ago, like he saw straight through me.

“You had your whole life planned out,” he said. “You were…good. Happy. You didn’t need me messing that up.”

My chest tightened because it felt like a half-truth, like there was something else he wasn’t telling me. “You didn’t mess anything up.”

His jaw flexed. “Debatable.”

I shook my head, frustration bubbling up through the haze. “You don’t get to decide that for me.”

“And you don’t get to pretend it would’ve changed things.”

“It already did,” I said, softer.

That stopped him.

“You leaving?” I swallowed. “Yeah. It changed things.”

The room felt smaller. Closer.

He watched me like he wanted to say something—like there were a thousand things sitting on the tip of his tongue—but none of them made it out.