He spends a lot of time on his phone these days. Scrolling through his camera roll and letting the corner of his lips twitch in amusement at the numerous photos he keeps of Tanner and Penny, flicking through social media and slowly feeling his brain rot away, whatever it takes to keep his mind busy and away from his situation.

Tonight, he lays on the couch, Petunia tucked into the crook between his outstretched legs despite how large she has gotten in the past year. The weight of her against his body is reassuring – a reminder that he’s still loved despite it all, even if it was mainly by his spur-of-the-moment dog. One hand drags a soothing line along the crease between her eyes while the other scrolls through social media, half-lidded in that weird liminal space between boredom and mildly entertained.

Just as he’s about to finally set the device down and let his brain wash away with Survivor re-runs, his phone buzzes with a singular text, peaking his interest again. The name on the message is what has him sitting up so fast that it startles the golden retriever on his lap.

If he looked back on any time in his past, Frank would find you. He had been great friends with your older brother, especially since your family had lived next door for as long as he could remember. He had spent a lot of time at your house or at social mixers that your parents tended to throw for the neighborhood, smiling at the side of your brother as you had bickered as siblings do.

It wasn’t like you had spent a lot of alone time together. A quick conversation in the kitchen as he came down for a snack, a playful taunt from his lips when you had tried a new outfit or hairstyle, splashing you with the hose when you were just watching them gallivant outside during the hot summers.

One of the last times Frank saw you, you were still a teenager. Wide-eyed and yet still believing that the entire world was against you, friendship bracelets littering your wrists and a streak of red in your hair from when your mother had finally allowed you to add just one color.

You had sat behind the shoulder of your brother, arms crossed over your chest as both of your families and numerous friends from the neighborhood crooned their sadness that he was leaving for college. The entire day of his going away party, you had stayed quiet and compliant, although you had never attempted to leave.

That night, as the crowd dwindled and everyone started cleaning up, you had curled one arm around his waist like you were afraid to touch him and murmured an “i’ll miss you” into his ribcage. He had simply pulled you closer until you were forced to add your other arm around him, squeezing you closer and whispering the secret right back into your hair. You’ve talked every now and then since he left. Your parents are still close to his own, which means he tends to see you every time he visits his family, although the two of you never mention the night he left. Sometimes, you’ll send him a quick text asking a medical question. 

How do you know if your sunburn is sun poisoning? 

What’s an emergency-room level fever? 

My finger is swollen but I can move it. Is it broken?

He always entertained the small bits of conversation he could grab from you, even when he had been with Abby. When she had asked about you, he had just called you his childhood friend’s younger sister, even if it made something churn in his stomach.

And now, after a few months of no medical inquiries hitting his inbox, there you are.

YOU: i have a question FRANK: you always do YOU: this isn’t about my health FRANK: didn’t know you could ask questions that weren’t about your health YOU: ha ha YOU: listen YOU: hold on. can i call you?

Frank sits up a little taller, passing an apologetic glance towards Petunia when she lets out an annoyed groan at how much he’s fidgeting. He looks around his apartment like you’re going to be able to see his cluttered living room through the phone before responding with the most nonchalant yes he can muster.

His phone rings only a few moments later, a young photo of you filling his screen from your contact. He answers after letting it vibrate once against his palm, clearing his throat before the microphone turns on. “Hello?”

“Frank!” His name comes out in a squeak. “Uh, hey. How are you?”

He can’t help the small smile that blooms, looking around his empty apartment. You weren’t filled in on his divorce yet, he assumed. “Peachy,” he lies easily. “What’s up?”

There’s rustling on your side of the line before a heavy sigh. “Hey, I need to ask you a favor. It’s big, and it’s okay if you don’t have an answer right now, but I just… I don’t know.” Your words are rushed, nervousness seeping through every word.

“Hey,” he coos calmly. “Stop freaking out or you’re gonna make me think you need help hiding a body.”

“Ha-ha.” A sarcastic response just like the one you had texted him. He grins again at the thought. “Okay. I’ll cut to it.”

Another heavy sigh seeps through the speaker, crackling in his ear. “Is there any way I can stay with you for a week? I know that you have Tanner and Penny, plus I don’t know how Abby will feel about it, but I’m waiting for my new place in Pittsburgh to open up, but my new job needs me to start this week and it won’t be available until Tuesday at the latest and I don’t really know how many nights at a hotel I can afford or mentally stand.”

Frank’s eyebrows raise so high on his forehead that he’s sure they’ve integrated themself into his hairline. His lips part, then close, then part again as he runs your rushed words through his head over and over. Then, he swallows, shaking his head. “You’re moving to Pittsburgh? I thought you were living with a boyfriend or something, a few minutes from home.”

“Uh, yeah.” You laugh, although it sounds strained. He can imagine you now, twirling a strand of hair around your pointer finger as you paced. He saw it a lot during the teenage years, watching you try to convince your parents through the phone that you really wanted to go to a friend’s sleepover, even though you were actually trying to sneak out to some house party. “No boyfriend anymore. No boyfriend, no home. Bye-bye. To Pittsburgh, I go, seeking employment opportunities.”

He’s quiet again for another moment, mulling it over. His thoughts run so fast that he finally peels himself off of his couch, taking a page out of your book and pacing along the line of his rug. 

He must’ve been quiet for way too long, because you speak again. “You can take your time to give me an answer. I’ll drive down there at the end of this weekend, so there’s a few days to think it over. I just wanted to ask in advance rather than show up on your doorstep.”

And thank God you didn’t. You’d find your way to “his” house and be greeted by his ex-wife, who still says his name with a slice of distaste. You’d find out from her about everything that’s happened in the past two years of his life – drug addiction, rehab, divorce, custody agreements, consistent loneliness minus man’s best friend, Petunia.

“Uh,” he says stupidly.

Everything he could say turns into dust on his tongue, unable to get out a single word. How does he explain all of this? That the charming teenager you once knew, who was consistently surrounded by good friends that were always willing to celebrate him, had lost his college sweetheart in a messy divorce after throwing his back out, getting addicted to benzos and almost losing his job?

Lord knows Frank has lost all of his ego at this point in his life, other than his promise of being a good doctor, but he can almost ensure that you liked who he was as a teenager. His childhood and teenage years were filled with your wide eyes, asking him to open jars for you or to drive you to some friend’s house. When your first boyfriend had broken up with you, he had been the one who had picked you up from his house, ignoring the squeeze in his chest at the sight of your red eyes as he promised not to tell your brother.

“Can we talk about it? When you come in on Sunday?” He asks. 

Three days. Three days is all he has to figure out what exactly he’s going to tell you. Three days to come to terms with the fact that you may never see him the same ever again.

He isn’t sure why he cares so much. His parents knew of his divorce, of his ten-month stint in rehab. It’d been hard enough to tell them, and he had survived, but telling you feels like an entire weight sitting on his chest.

Your next words come out too hopeful. “Yeah! Okay!” Then, with a grin so wide he can hear it without seeing your face, you make a last minute addition. “At least I get to see you once, even if Abby ends up saying no to me staying.”

Abby, Abby, Abby. Why did you feel the incessant need to bring her up? Even if he was still married to her, he had known you way before she had even existed, had had numerous conversations about topics that didn’t include her.

Instead of being annoyed about it, he chooses to instead stick to the happy feelings that you being excited to see him gave him. “Yeah. It’ll be good to hang out again,” he responds. “Can update me on what Adrian did to have you runnin’ from him.”

“Adam,” you correct. He knew that, of course, but he feels warm at the laugh that shortly follows. “I’ll happily get into that. My brother doesn’t allow me to talk about him much anymore, so I have a lifetime worth of bad stories and ruined memories and icks to rant about.”

Now, it’s Frank’s turn to laugh. “Noted. I will happily listen.”

“I know you will. You always did.” Your voice gets softer as you trail off. 

Warning bells go off in his head at the first fluttering beat of his heart. Oh, this is wrong. So, so wrong. 

Before you can say anything else and mess with his head more, he lets out a heavy sigh. “Alrighty, sunshine, I have to get to bed so I can get to my shift in time tomorrow. Text me on Saturday and we can figure out a place to meet, okay?”

You let out a soft groan into the phone, probably evidence of a late-night stretch. “Okay, Frank. Talk to you Saturday.”

“See you Sunday,” he responds in a murmur.

He’s not the one that hangs up.

For all of Friday, your name does not grace his phone. He checks every free moment that he gets during his shift, but each time he is met with a blank notification screen.  If it wasn’t for the fact that you sat at the top of his messages and call log, he’d be able to convince himself that he made the whole situation up. You weren’t moving to Pittsburgh, you weren’t asking to stay at his apartment, he didn’t have to finally owe up to all of his transgressions.

Every time Frank reminds himself of the fact, an uncomfortable feeling crawls up his spine until it settles in his chest, pressing down on his lungs until he is aware of every heartbeat. He feels foolish for the way he digs the heel of his palm into his sternum, pressing his eyes closed and trying to will his body to stop punishing him for his brain’s doing.

He’s never been good at being vulnerable. As a child, he’d split his knee open falling off of his bike just to get up a moment later, laughing until he wheezed despite the dull ache in his leg and the blood trickling down his calf. As a teenager, he’d met heartbreak and hard times with a persistent need to show how well he was doing despite it all, even if he was just proving it to himself.

And now, as an adult, he goes the route of just ignoring it. Letting himself indulge in the things that he knows he shouldn’t, not allowing anyone to see past the mirage he has set up. He’s Frank Langdon, MD, an excellent emergency medicine resident with a confidence big enough to outweigh any Olympic athlete.

Unfortunately, with you, he cannot act like everything is okay. He knows that the second he looks into your wide eyes, staring into a memory of what he used to have and what he used to be, everything will fizzle up like the spark at the end of a detonating cord. You’ve always brought out his honesty, a personal truth serum in the form of billowy hair and flavored lipgloss.

Saturday morning, it rains in Pittsburgh. He doesn’t get to see it much due to being in the hospital all day, but the smell of petrichor seeps in the ambulance bay and water droplets cling to the hair of everyone who comes through the doors. Whenever he gets a free chance, he sits in the bay, listening to the rain hit the concrete and letting his mind dull for a moment.

It’s late, moonlight filtering through dark clouds to barely illuminate the flooded street. The thunderstorm that’s been threatening to arrive all week has finally decided to make its dramatic entrance, just in time to add upon Frank’s soured mood.

His mother would throw a fit if she saw what he was doing now. Clothes soaked and stuck to his skin, his hoodie doing absolutely nothing to keep the cold out, perched on his family’s roof. It’d been too easy to climb out of the window in his bedroom, especially with everything in his head screaming at him to just get out of the house.

Now, he sits in the rain, arms wrapped around his knees as he watches the raindrops glide down the shingles and into the gutter. All the collected water pours out into his yard, creating a larger and larger puddle as the night goes on.

He’s not sure how long he’s been out here, listening to the soft patter of the rain and the frequent booms of thunder. His mind has been more occupied by other things, such as the heavy scolding he had gotten from his coach after tonight’s game, or the passive-aggressive brush-off he had gotten from his girlfriend when he had tried to invite her out to the diner afterwards.

It was stupid, how much the sport controlled every aspect of his life. He had no intention of becoming a D1 athlete, and the only reason he had committed to the team in the first place was due to the need for a social life and perhaps the chance at a scholarship. Instead, it had affected everything else in his life. His classmates and teachers opinion of him, his father’s pride, his schedule, his own self-esteem.

“You’re gonna catch a cold! Or get struck by lightning!”

Frank barely hears the yell over the downpour, head turning and eyes squinting to try and look through the mist. Your bedroom light sticks out like a lighthouse on the shore, backlighting your silhouette from where you lean out your window.

His brow furrows. “It is way past your bedtime!” he calls back. It’s all an assumption. He has absolutely no idea what time it is.

Rather than respond, you disappear away from the window. He’s just about to turn around and pretend you had never been there when your outline appears again, now in a thick coat. Before he can even think about what you may be doing, your foot peeks out of your window, finding the thick branch of the tree that stretches between your houses.

“Hey! No!” He scolds. Either his voice is carried away by the storm or you choose to ignore him, because a few minutes later, your boot-covered feet are atop his roof.

As soon as you find solid footing, you unfurl an umbrella that he hadn’t been able to see before. You clutch something to your chest as you slide over to where he sits, thigh pressing against his as you settle.

“Here,” you say. “I brought you a new sweatshirt so you don’t turn into an ice cube. It’s one of my brother’s, I think.”

You hold the umbrella up and pass the hoodie over to him. He palms it for a moment, stealing the warmth before glancing at you in his peripheral. “How am I supposed to change into this?”

“I won’t look, if that’s what you’re worried about. But, just a fair warning, I’ve already seen your bare torso plenty of times in the last years we’ve known each other.” The remark is deadpan, but even in the dark, he can see the amusement in your eyes.

He rolls his eyes, reaching over to gently nudge you in the side. Without another word, he reaches down to pull off his drenched hoodie, setting it beside him. His chest is bare for just a moment before he tugs the new hoodie on, arranging his body so that he doesn’t accidentally stick his now-dry sleeve back into the rain.

After he has it situated, Frank turns back to you. “Thank you,” he murmurs.

You squirm to make sure the both of you fit comfortably beneath the umbrella, pressing closer to Frank. If you notice the way you’re practically tucked into his side, you don’t give any inclination, and he’s not exactly itching to bring it up. 

“Don’t mention it,” you reply sheepishly. “You look sad enough without the wet dog look.”

A cold wind breezes over the two of you, a shudder wracking your body. Without thinking about it too hard, he raises his arm to drape it over your shoulders, fingers pressing into your bicep as he rubs up and down to create friction. Rather than fight, you sink into the touch, relaxing beneath his touch.

This was fine. This is what friends did, he lies.

“Why are you choosing to torture yourself with this weather?” You ask, forehead leaning against his chest. “We could be cozy in bed right now.”

You pause, then quickly add, “Our own beds. In our separate houses.”

He laughs, giving you a soft squeeze. The sound fades out slowly as he thinks more about your question, eyes looking out upon the neighborhood again. “Had a hard day.”

A knowing hum is your answer, plucking at the ends of your sleeves to keep your hands busy. “Because of the game?” You guess.

Now that you’re not shivering anymore, he drops his arm, palm flattening on the roof behind your hips. He’s not exactly ready to uncurl himself from you, but there had to be a bit of distance, for his sake. “Something like that.”

Your lips twitch in dissatisfaction at the answer, brow furrowing as you look up at him. As soon as he finally catches your eye, your palm covers his knee, ignoring the way his jeans stick to his skin. “You can talk about it if you want, Frank. Or even if you don’t want to and it’s just that it’ll help.”

A smile unfurls on his lips before he can stop it, a fond look eclipsing over his face. He wraps his arm around your waist, pulling you in for a hug and letting out a relieved sigh when you prop your chin on his shoulder. “I don’t need to but thank you, sunshine. I‘m glad you came out here.”

Your nose presses into his skin, breath brushing against the side of his neck. “Of course. Couldn’t let you catch a cold all on your own, you’d get lonely.”

After a moment, you finally pull back, lips spreading into a grin. “Wanna come over? We can watch a movie if you’re still not able to sleep.”

“I am not climbing across a tree into your room,” he immediately responds. Your face falls and he scrambles to add, “but you can come over to mine?”

Immediately, that grin is back, making him laugh. He pats at your arm playfully before grabbing the umbrella from you, gesturing towards his window. “Go ahead. I’ll keep you dry.”

Frank’s interrupted from his reminiscing by a few buzzes in his pocket, pulling out his phone with a hefty sigh. Almost like he’s summoned you, his screen is littered with multiple texts from you.

YOU: it is saturday YOU: we need to plan a place to meet tomorrow YOU: and by we, i mean you. i don’t live there YOU: what do you suggest?

He responds quickly with the location of some diner he used to frequent when he just got out of rehab, his second text a simple thumb’s up emoji and a question mark. The less words he used, the better, especially with the way all of his emotions tend to go on overdrive talking to you.

You respond quickly. It’s simple, an agreement and a note about how you were excited to see him, but it still makes his chest tighten.

That night, alone in his apartment yet again, Frank sits down on his couch with a journal on his lap. It’s still wrapped in the plastic, purchased brand new on his way home from work alongside the pack of pens resting next to his thigh. He glances down at Petunia, who’s draped herself over his feet in the exhaustion lingering from her nap, chewing on the inside of his cheek in thought.

Finally, he presses his thumbnail into the plastic until it gives way, ripping the rest of it off soon after. He cracks open the pens next, curling his fingers around one and leaving the rest in the package.

He had journaled a lot during his time in rehab. His therapist had brought it up after he’d stonewalled her during his first few appointments, retreating into an invisible shell as he went through withdrawal and felt the dull pain in his back for the first time in what felt like ages. She’d ran the pad of her finger over the outside of the journal as she explained to him that it’d be good for him to get all of his feelings out, even if he continued to ignore her in person.

At first, he thought it was stupid. Writing until his hand cramped wouldn’t take back the fact that he was an addict, or that he craved these stupid pills that he thought he was only taking for a persistent pinched nerve, or that his wife had looked at him like some kind of criminal as she tucked a crying Tanner behind her back when he said goodbye. The cramps wouldn’t cover up the persistent ache in his chest that everything he had ever worked so hard to have and to keep had been wiped away by a stupid mistake, something that he could’ve controlled if he was even an ounce of a better man.

It started as letters to Abby. She never answered the ones that he actually sent, so he decided to stop embarrassing or restraining himself. He filled up page after page with his crimes and confessions, writing about their good memories in hopes of trying to push away the present. At the end of each letter, he’d tally up how many times he had written out an apology and try to push to add more the next time he wrote, as if any condolences would be enough to cover up what he had done.

Then, he branched out. He wrote to Dana and Robby and his parents, keeping all of the words hidden and safe and locked in his journal. Within the pages he could confirm that none of his words would be twisted by those who already thought negatively of him. He could just be the Frank Langdon he knew himself to be, even if his opinion got a bit shaky sometimes.

He wrote to you. After he had scrawled your name on the page in his doctor handwriting, he stared at it for a while, wondering what had possessed him to think of you in a time like this. Admittedly, he hadn’t remembered the last time you had crossed his mind and it wasn’t because you had shown up at a family event with a new boyfriend and a new hair color.

Rather than stop himself, he let himself write whatever came to mind. He wrote about all the times he had helped you out and you had said “I’m sorry,” until he pinky-promised you that he didn’t mind. A subconscious smile pulled at his lips when he wrote about the time his father had burnt the hot dogs on his grill for the fourth of July and you had still eaten the entire thing, even if he could see the grimace on your face with every bite. 

He talked about how it was now his turn to apologize to you. For not thinking of you as often now that he had moved away and gotten out of medical school. For all the times he had secretly judged you for all of your vices, such as your need for constant change or your inability to find your boyfriends interesting after a few months. For not being the perfect guy you always saw him as.

Frank’s newly eighteen. He sits on his roof, the same spot he’s gone to every single time he finds his mind to become a bit too much. It’s become a sanctuary without walls since that night you had crawled out here and sat with him, even if it ended in the both of you waking up with a cold when the morning light came in. Some nights, you still come out and join him, limbs pressed together as you both acted like they weren’t.

Like clockwork, you join him about ten minutes after he’s settled onto the shingles. You don’t even grace him with a greeting. You just sit down, pulling your knees to your chest and trying to find what his eyes have decided to focus on.

“The cardinal over there?” You guess.

He nods without looking at you. He doesn’t need to look at you, not when the wind brings your perfume to him like an offering and your body heat seeps through his clothes despite how cold your hands always tend to be. 

The both of you are quiet for a moment, listening to the sounds of the cars driving through the neighborhood or the planes flying overhead. Every once in a while, he catches you trying to find what he’s looking at, like a curious child.

You break the silence with a heavy sigh, head turning to look at him. He finally allows himself the grace to look at you, giving you a soft smile to show that he’s okay. 

“I’m going to miss you,” you confess. “While you’re away at school.”

Frank nods again, even though it’s not really a rebuttal to what you had said. Realizing his lack of response, he reaches out to wrap his fingers around your forearm, giving it a soft reassuring squeeze. “I’ll come back,” he promises. “I’m not gonna leave this place in the rearview mirror.”

Now it’s your turn to smile, eyes following his hand as he returns it back to his lap. “Good,” you reply. “Who else is gonna pick me up from bad dates and sneak me cigarettes?” That mischievous grin that you wear like a second skin, or like an armor depending on the conversation, pops up. 

“Some other sucker,” he retorts. 

That silence returns when your giggle ends, hanging over the both of you. Unable to sit in the silence, you break it with another confession.

“I always thought you were too cool for anything when I first met you.” Your thumb brushes over your kneecap, wrinkling and smoothening the fabric of your jeans. “Even as young as we were, you seemed like you didn’t want to hear anything from anyone. Always your way or the highway. And then you became friends with my brother and you were everywhere and you were such a nerd.”

You laugh at his eye roll, passing him a look that tells him to wait for your point and not say anything. “I realized you weren’t too cool very quickly. Your limbs were too lanky and you fumbled over your words and you overcompensated by holding onto that same oozing confidence I had seen the minute we had moved in.”

Your teeth dig into your bottom lip for a moment before you continue. “But even if you’re not as untouchable as I thought you once were, I still think you’re perfect, Frank.” Despite the raw way the words come out, you say them louder than your murmured confessions, sporting a wide grin. “I hope you remember that when you’re becoming a big hotshot doctor.”

Frank sighs as he runs his fingers over the fresh pages of his brand new notebook, listening to the sound of paper fluttering. He grips the pen in his hand tighter, finally cracking the spine of the journal as he peels it open on his lap.

For the first time since he left rehab, he writes.

On Sunday morning, Frank arrives at the diner half an hour early. As he settles into the booth, his fingers tighten around the bag he carries, glancing around like you’d pop up out of nowhere.

While he waits, regretting his decision to have come in early in order to avoid the awkwardness of an introduction, he finishes two glasses of water and asks for another refill. His body feels unbelievably hot and he feels fidgety, adjusting his position in his seat multiple times and squirming at the crack of leather that follows every time he moves.

Five minutes after the time the both of you had agreed upon, the bell above the door chimes. His head turns so fast that a tendon pops, eyes landing upon you.

He wasn’t expecting you to look the same. Every time he sees you, no matter how long or short your time apart has been, there’s something different about you. A new color added to your hair or a complete change, a new style of outfits, another decorative piercing. A new tattoo if you were feeling extra adventurous in some foreign country.

Even knowing that, his breath catches at the sight of you. His blue eyes are wide when you finally look at him, your face brightening while he looks like a deer in headlights. He tries to match your smile, but it’s very obviously shaky.

When you get closer, he finally stands up, hand propped on the back of the booth as he greets you. “Hey, stranger.”

He can not find a single trace of anxiety on your features as you grin, reaching out to jab your finger into his chest. “Says you,” you tease. You slip into the opposite side of the booth, palms flattening on the table. “You’re the one who’s too busy to come home these days. It’s been, what, two years or so?”

Frank’s chest tightens again. He sits down to hide the tremble in his knees, exhaling so hard that a napkin flutters. “It’s been, uh, a busy two years,” he responds. “Would’ve come out if I could.”

You grab a menu, already feeling at home in this diner you’ve never been to. “With what? Saving lives? Or is Abby keeping you busy?”

There’s her name again, falling off her lips as if you get a dollar for every time that she’s mentioned. He grabs his own menu to try and hide the shaking of his hands, holding it up to hide his face.

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.

“Abby and I aren’t together anymore,” he admits. He lets the words drop off of his tongue rather than trying to say them gently. He had tried the gentle approach with everyone else he has told and it had only ended up one of two ways – they either pitied him until he couldn’t take it anymore or felt disgusted by the fact that he let himself cave into his addiction.

He spares a glance at you again once there’s enough quiet to suffocate him. You stare at him, your menu now laying flat on the table, and he decides to just keep going while you’re stunned already to rip off the bandaid. “We divorced after I went to rehab.”

You physically recoil in surprise, blinking your eyes as you try to put together all of the information. “Okay.” You draw out the word, trying to fill the space as if you were afraid he’d suddenly drop another bomb. “That’s not what I was expecting out of this catch-up. I thought you were just going to tell me fun stories about working in an emergency room.”

To his surprise, you thread your fingers together, resting both of your elbows on the table and holding his eyes. “Do you want to explain, or leave it at that?”

Frank’s shoulders lower more and more as he spills it all. Now that the harsh facts are out there, it’s easier for him to let everything else spill out. The back injury, the benzos addiction, the fallout at work, the rehab and the divorce. He tries not to let the emotions of them seep through, tries to stick to just the facts, but there’s a few things that slip through the cracks.

It’s easy to spill his guts to you. His own personal truth serum.

When he finishes, he clears his throat, suddenly bashful. “And there’s one more thing.”

He finally reaches into the bag he brought along, fingers closing around the journals inside and pulling them out. Before he can second guess it, he slides them across the table, watching as your hands move to keep them from falling off. 

“Diaries?” you guess lightheartedly.

“Kind of.” Frank chuckles, reaching up to scratch at the back of his neck. “I wrote a lot in rehab. My therapist recommended it. There’s a, uh, letter in there. For you. It’s where the tab is.” 

His fingers flick at the sticky note that’s just peeking out from the pages, glancing up at you through his eyelashes. “I trust that you won’t dig through the entire thing, but it’s okay if you do. Just know you’ll probably know more about me than you want to.”

You beam up at him before rifling quickly through the pages, taking brief glances at the scrawlings on the pages before letting it shut again. “Are you sure, Frank? This seems really personal.” 

He shrugs, leaning back in the booth and crossing his arms over his chest. “Well, you’re about to stay with me, aren’t you? You’ll see enough of my bad moments this week, so we might as well start now.”

His flaws are completely forgotten as you lean forward, somehow brightening more. The glow of the sunlight through the window is nothing compared to the way you look right now. “Really? You’ll let me stay with you.”

A laugh bubbles out of him before he can stop it, shaking his head. “You’ve bugged me for most of my life, we can’t ruin the tradition now.”

With a huff, you grab the wadded up piece of paper from his straw before tossing it at his forehead, grinning like a madwoman. “Jerk.”

For the rest of the day, Frank helps you move whatever you need into the spare bedroom of his apartment. The both of you pick up where you left off the last time he saw you, bickering over who gets to pick up the larger items and bigger boxes – you because of Frank’s bad back or Frank because he wants to be a gentleman.

After a shared dinner of takeout and him watching you coo over Petunia for half an hour, he finally admits to you that he needs to sleep for work the next day and retreats to his bedroom. With a pep in his step from finally spending a night socializing instead of staring at meaningless social media posts, he showers and gets ready for bed, forcing his dog to roll over onto her side of the bed before settling beneath the duvet.

He’s halfway asleep when there’s a couple knocks at his door. Fatherly instincts have him immediately shooting up, startling Petunia awake. “Yeah?” He calls out tiredly as he runs his fingers through the dog’s fur, soothing her back to sleep.

The door opens to reveal you, donned in soft pajamas and hair pulled up out of your face. The sight of his journal in your hands has him leaning over to click on his bedside lamp, illuminating his room and you in a warm glow. “What’s wrong?”

You hover in the doorway for a moment, lips parted when no words come out. Your mouth closes as you step closer, sitting down on the edge of his bed near his legs. He doesn’t move.

“You didn’t need to apologize,” you finally say. “For all of it.”

Frank runs a hand through his hair, the other still petting Petunia to try and calm the heavy beating of his heart. “I felt… feel like I needed to,” he admits sheepishly.

You prop one knee up on the mattress, somehow getting even closer to him. He tries not to squirm at the familiarity of it all. “None of what you’ve gone through the last couple of years has been your fault, Frank,” you murmur. “Addiction is a disease, not something someone willingly puts themselves through. You did the work through rehab and therapy, which is an apology enough for me.”

Your fingers brush against his duvet, tracing shapes next to his covered knee. “Your letter was sweet.” You continue, watching your fingers. “I’d forgotten about a couple of those things. It was nice to be reminded. I’m surprised you remembered.”

“I’ve been known to have a freakishly good memory,” he muses awkwardly.

That makes you finally look at him, giving him a soft grin. Your hand moves to curve over his knee, a shiver moving down his spine at the contact. “Imagine my surprise when I get to the end, my eyes hurting from squinting at your doctor handwriting, and I find out that –”

“ – that I wanted to kiss you.” He finishes the sentence before you can say the words. “The night of my going away party, when you told me that you were going to miss me again. I wanted to kiss you, because most people hadn’t even told me once and you had told me three times. I wanted to kiss you that night because I had wanted to kiss you many nights before that and never had.”

Frank sits up, hand finally leaving Petunia to grab yours and pull it away from his knee. His other hand moves to cup your cheek, giving a small smile when you lean into his palm. Your cheeks are warm beneath his touch, like only your hands are destined to be cold. Maybe it’s because they’re meant to be held by him, he thinks.

He leans forward until his nose brushes against your cheek. “No boyfriend?” He whispers against your skin. Just checking.

“No boyfriend,” you breathe out.

As soon as the last syllable leaves your tongue, he kisses you, seizing the opportunity of your lips still being parted. He kisses you like he’s trying to steal the air from your lungs, hand curling around the back of your neck to pull your lips closer.

He only pulls away when Petunia nudges at his elbow, jealous of the attention not being on her anymore, laughing breathlessly. He presses his forehead against yours. “You’re wrong to say that I didn’t need to apologize. I have to apologize for not kissing you sooner.”

You copy his breathless laugh, leaning back to breathe some of your own air. “I’ll take that apology,” you respond. You press your lips together to try and hide your giddy smile, staring at him for just a moment.

This is everything he’s ever wanted, he thinks. You’re beautiful like this, freshly kissed by him and euphoric, bathed in the aureate light of his lamp. Being here with you won’t fix any problem that he’s created, but it is the first thing that’s felt right in a very long time.

Then, in the blink of an eye, you stand, still clutching his journal in your hand. “Okay. I’m going to bed.”

Frank scrambles at your sudden pull away, sitting up further, much to the chagrin of the dog laying her head on his thigh. “You’re going to bed? Your bed?”

You stop at the doorway, turning to grin at him. “I’ve bugged you all of your life. We can’t ruin the tradition now,” you mock. 

With that, you give him a small wave, closing his bedroom door behind you.

He lets out an amused scoff at the click of his door, staring at it for a few moments to make sure you were serious and not just pulling his leg. When he faintly hears the sound of your bedroom door shutting, he groans, falling back onto his pillow and letting Petunia drape herself back over his torso. Then, he laughs, raising his hand to pinch at the bridge of his nose.