silentium est aureum

You could feel all that alcohol buzzing in your head, like a heavy vibration that made the loud bass from the living room feel like it was pulsing right behind your eyes. It didn't make you feel numb or happy, it just made everything sharper, louder, and harder to block out.

You knew coming here was a terrible idea, but by the time the realization settled in, your boots were already tracking melted snow across the floor and your fingers were already wrapped around a drink you didn't want.

You stood completely still in the dark kitchen, the lights turned off to escape the bright glare of the party outside. The only thing illuminating the room was the pale streetlight cutting through the window above the sink, throwing long, distorted shadows across the linoleum floor.

You had known it, of course. You had spent the entire walk here trying to mentally prepare yourself, trying to build up a wall thick enough to withstand whatever version of him walked through that door. But the alcohol buzzing in your veins had softened those defenses, turning them to paper.

He was here. Obviously.

After all, you shared a lot of friends, and the birthday party of his best friend was no exception. Avoiding this night would have meant hiding away, admitting defeat, and you were so tired of letting the ghost of him dictate where you were allowed to go. So you had come. You had walked in, and you had immediately regretted it.

For the last two hours, you had been trapped in a living nightmare, hiding in plain sight. Every time you turned your head, there he was. Joost. Standing right in the center of the crowded living room, a beer held casually in his hand, laughing and talking with everyone as if his chest didn't carry the same crushing weight yours did.

He looked devastatingly good; his blond hair slightly messy under the warm house lights, his smile bright and effortless. He was playing the part of the charming, unbothered guy perfectly. He was the life of the party, acting like the months since your breakup hadn't completely destroyed you.

Every single time his familiar laugh reached your ears over the music, it felt like a real punch to your stomach. The alcohol in your system only made the bitterness burn hotter, turning the sadness into something sharp and ugly.

While you were barely surviving, drowning in the quiet emptiness of your bedroom every single night, he had apparently just put on a big smile, walked out the door, and moved on. You had finally fled into this dark kitchen just to breathe, to get away from his suffocating presence.

The air in here was cooler, smelling faintly of old coffee and dish soap. You stood by the counter, the alcohol buzzing heavily in your blood, making the walls feel like they were slightly tilting. You just needed five minutes. Five minutes to stop your hands from shaking before you gathered your things and left this goddamn house for good.

Then, the door pushed open.

You flinched, expecting it to be him, your heart slamming violently against your ribs. But it wasn’t. It was a guy, a friend of a friend—Bram, or maybe Finn—holding a half-empty beer and looking a little flushed from the alcohol.

“Oh, sorry,” he blinked, his eyes adjusting to the dark room before a slow, easy smile spread across his face. “Didn’t know anyone was hiding out in here.”

You swallowed the lump in your throat, trying to force your voice to sound normal and unbothered. “Just needed a second of quiet.”

He let out a low chuckle, stepping further into the room until the heavy door clicked shut behind him, cutting off the worst of the noise. He walked over to the counter, leaning back against it just a few inches away from you.

“Can’t blame you,” he said, taking a slow sip from his beer. His voice was warm. “It’s getting pretty intense out there. I’m Bram, by the way. I think we have a few mutuals, but we’ve never actually talked.”

You shifted slightly, your elbow brushing against the cold marble of the counter. He wasn't being pushy; he was just being nice. He was looking at you the way normal people look at someone they want to get to know.

Under normal circumstances, you would have made some polite small talk and then excused yourself to go find your jacket. But the bitter ache in your chest was making you feel reckless. You were so tired of being the one hiding in corners while Joost got to act like nothing had happened.

“Yeah, we do,” you murmured, forcing yourself to look up and meet his eyes. You let a tiny, tight smile touch your lips.

Bram’s expression softened, a little surprised but clearly encouraged that you were actually talking to him. He shifted his weight, turning his body completely toward yours in the shadows, closing that tiny gap between you.

“Nice to finally meet you,” he said softly, his voice dropping a bit lower to stay beneath the bass thudding through the walls. He looked down at your hands, then back up at your face, his movements relaxed. “You know, I’ve been wanting to come say hi all night, but you looked kind of... lost in thought.”

Before you could think of a reply, he reached out. It wasn’t aggressive—just a casual, warm gesture—as his fingers came to rest gently on your forearm. His hand was warm against your skin, his thumb resting right over your pulse point. “Come outside to the garden with me? Get away from this madness for a bit.”

For a split second, you just stared at his hand on your arm. The physical touch made you feel weird. Strange.

Then, the kitchen door swung open again.

A sharp, violent burst of music and light sliced through the darkness again before the door clicked shut, plunging the room right back into the dim shadows.

Joost stood right by the entrance. He had an empty bottle balanced loosely between his fingers, his shoulders slouched as if he had just escaped the crowd to find the exact same quiet you were looking for. But the second his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he froze dead in his tracks.

The wide, confident smile he had been wearing all night vanished instantly. His jaw went slightly slack, his face turning completely pale and miserable. The charming, unbothered guy from the party was gone in a single breath.

Then his gaze dropped.

Joost’s eyes locked onto Bram’s hand, which was still resting gently on your bare forearm.

The shift in him was terrifyingly quiet. His entire frame went completely rigid, his shoulders locking into place. His jaw clenched so hard that a tiny, sharp muscle started jumping under the skin of his cheek, and his knuckles turned totally white around the bottle. He looked physically sick, like he’d just been hit in the chest.

“Am I interrupting something?”

Joost’s voice cut through the dark room like a shard of glass. It was rough, completely stripped of that melodic charm he’d been throwing around all night.

Bram blinked slowly, his hand naturally dropping away from your forearm as he turned his head toward the noise. The sudden loss of warmth on your skin made you shiver, the alcohol buzzing in your head suddenly feeling sharp.

“Hey, Joost, we were just talking, man,” Bram said, his tone easy and completely clueless to the invisible trap he had just stepped on. He forced a polite smile, trying to clear the sudden, heavy tension in the air.

Joost didn't smile back. He didn't even look at Bram. His eyes were glued to your face, dark and completely desperate, tracking the way your chest was rising and falling too fast.

“Actually, I think someone was looking for you, Bram,” Joost said.

His voice didn't rise, but there was a quiet, dangerous edge to it—the kind that made the hair on the back of your neck stand up. He took one slow step forward into the kitchen, his boots heavy against the floor.

Bram shifted his weight, his eyes darting between you and Joost. The easy, relaxed vibe he had brought into the kitchen was completely dead, replaced by that awkward realization that he had stumbled into the middle of a private battlefield. He cleared his throat, taking a step back toward the door and giving you a small, apologetic nod.

“I guess I will see you later,” Bram said, his voice trailing off as he reached for the handle.

“Yeah, you won’t,” Joost muttered under his breath.

It was barely a whisper, a rough, bitter sound that Bram completely missed over the sudden burst of music as he pushed the door open and slipped back into the crowded room.

The door clicked shut, and the absolute silence of the dark kitchen crashed down between the two of you again.

Joost didn’t move. He stood right there, his knuckles still white around his bottle, his blond hair messy in the dim green light of the microwave clock. Now that you were completely alone, the angry, possessive tension in his shoulders seemed to snap.

He finally tore his eyes away from the door and looked at you, his breathing heavy and fast.

“What the fuck was that?” he breathed out, his voice cracking slightly in the dark.

You didn't flinch. You just kept your back pressed against the cold counter. You looked at his tired face and the panic in his eyes, and you let out a short breath through your nose.

“This is how you gonna say hello to me?” Your voice was quiet.

Joost flinched as if you’d actually hit him. He let out a ragged breath and looked down at the floorboards between his boots, his jaw working as he tried to find his words. The cocky, smiling guy was now completely gone. This version of him looked small.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, his voice incredibly rough. He slowly looked back up, his eyes wide and completely dark in the shadows. “I’m sorry. I just... I walked in here and saw his hand on you, and I completely lost my mind.”

You let out a quiet, bitter laugh that lacked any real humor, your fingers digging into the edge of the marble counter just to keep you steady in his presence.

“You lost your mind?” you asked, your throat feeling dry and tight. “Joost, you’ve been out there for two hours acting like I’m invisible. You looked like you were having the absolute time of your fucking life.”

Joost closed his eyes for a second and rubbed a hand violently over his mouth, his breathing getting even faster than before. His whole body was trembling so hard that his fingers just completely gave out.

The glass beer bottle slipped right through his numb fingers.

It hit the hard linoleum floor with a sudden, deafening shatter. Green glass exploded everywhere, shards flying across the dark room.

You flinched hard, a sharp gasp tearing out of your throat as you instinctively jumped back against the counter, pulling your legs away. The sudden, violent noise felt like a gunshot in the quiet kitchen. Your heart rose straight into your throat, hammering frantically against your ribs as you stared down at the mess in shock.

Joost didn't even move. He didn't look down at the broken glass cutting into the soles of his boots. He just stood there, completely frozen, looking down at his own empty, shaking hand as if he couldn't comprehend how it had happened.

You looked up from the floor to his face, heart in your chest pounding.

When he finally raised his eyes to meet yours, the sheer panic in them made your breath catch. He looked absolutely horrified—not because of the mess, but because he saw the way you had jumped, the way you were looking at him right now with wide, scared eyes.

“I'm sorry,” he breathed out. He took an unthinking step toward you, his boot crunching loudly on a glass, before he caught himself and stopped. He threw his hands up slightly, palms open, as if to show he wasn't a threat. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—I didn't mean to do that. Please don't be scared. Jesus, please don't look at me like that.”

His voice cracked completely. His messy blond hair falling into his eyes, his chest rising and falling under his shirt.

“I was fucking suffocating out there,” he whispered, his eyes shiny. “I've been tracking you through the crowd since you came. I was just trying not to look at you. I thought if I just smiled enough, my chest would stop aching. But then I come in here to just breathe for a second, and some random guy has his hands on you.”

He took a sharp, unsteady breath through his nose, his voice dropping into a broken murmur.

“I saw his hand on your arm, and just... everything went black. My hands wouldn't even work. I realized I don't get to tell him to back off. I don't get to pull you away. It's killing me, okay? Being near you tonight is completely killing me.”

“Look what you did,” you whisper.

The words are barely a breath, shaky and completely broken. You aren't just looking at the glittering shards of green glass toward your shoes. The months of silence. The quiet emptiness of your bedroom. Him.

Your eyes sting, the stubborn tears you’d been fighting all night finally spilling over your lower eyelids. They track hot down your cold cheeks, but you don't even bother to wipe them away. The fright from the smash has faded, leaving behind an exhaustion that makes your entire body weak. You're just so tired.

Joost lets out a small, choked sound, like he's just been stabbed. He looks down at the mess between your feet, then looks back up at your wet face, his own eyes swimming in the dark. The sheer guilt on his face is hard to look at.

“I know,” he breathes, his voice dropping an octave. “I know.”

He stays completely still. He doesn’t reach for you, and he doesn’t look away. Instead, he just stands there.

The silence between you stretches, heavy and agonizing, broken only by the sound of his breathing and the faint, distant thud of the music from the living room. Seeing him like this makes something inside you shift. It’s too much. The alcohol still buzzing in your veins mixes with the exhaustion of the past few months, and you can’t keep the wall up anymore.

You let out a shaky, uneven breath, your eyes tracking a long piece of green glass on the floor.

“Then why did you let me leave?” you whisper, your voice cracking on the last word.

Joost's mouth parts slightly, a tiny, pained gasp escaping him. He looks down again, his jaw clenching so hard that the muscle in his cheek are almost all visible. When he looks back up, his eyes are entirely bloodshot.

“Because I was so fucking tired,” he confessed, the admission ripping out of his chest like a confession he’d been hiding from himself. He took a single step closer. “Everything felt so heavy. The arguments, the stress, the constant feeling like I was failing you... I was just so exhausted. And that night, my brain told me that letting you go was the only way we both could finally catch our breath.”

He let out a short, miserable laugh that sounded more like a sob, shaking his head.

“I was wrong, okay?” He whispered, his voice cracking completely as he looked at your wet face. “I thought I was tired then? It's nothing compared to how exhausted I've been every single second since. I'm so tired of missing you.”

You just stared at him, the alcohol in your system making your head tilt back slightly against the cold counter. The word tired felt like a physical slap. It was so simple, so mundane, and so deeply infuriating because you had spent months trying to figure out some massive, hidden reason for why everything had fallen apart. And it was just... that.

“So you just gave up,” you said. Your voice wasn't loud or dramatic; it was just flat, drained of any energy. “You got tired, so you let go.”

Joost winced, his jaw clenching hard. He didn't try to defend himself. He just stood there, looking lost, his arms hanging uselessly at his sides.

“Yeah,” he muttered, his voice dropping into a whisper. “I gave up. And it was the stupidest fucking thing I've ever done.”

He took another half-step forward. He was close enough now that you could feel the heat radiating off him. He raised a shaking hand, his fingers hovering just an inch away from your wet cheek, terrified to actually make contact.

“I don't even know how to look at you right now,” he breathed, his eyes searching yours, completely desperate.

You didn't move away from his hand, but you didn't lean into it either. You just let the cold tears keep tracking down your face, your eyes boring straight into his.

“Then why are you looking at me now?” you whispered, your voice finally cracking. “Why tonight? You spent months letting me think I was the only one suffocating, Joost. You let me watch you walk around this party for two hours like I was a stranger. And now you're in here, breaking things, telling me you were tired?”

A ragged breath hitched in his throat. His hovering hand finally dropped, his fingers curling into a tight fist against his thigh.

“Because I couldn't look at it anymore,” he suddenly choked out. It wasn't the polished, smooth voice people knew—it was a desperate, ugly sound. “I saw him touching you. I saw some random guy leaning in, whispering in your ear, putting his fucking hands on your arm, and my brain just stopped working. I realized you could actually leave. Like, really leave. Find someone else. Forget about me.”

He took the final step, his chest practically brushing against yours, completely crowding you against the counter. The smell of him, cigarettes mixed with alcohol, and that familiar, heartbreaking warmth, flooded your senses, making your head spin.

“It put me in a fucking panic,” he whispered, his eyes wide and watery. He was trembling so hard you could see the fabric of his shirt vibrating. “I'm a coward. I know I am. I stayed away because I was ashamed of how badly I fucked up. But watching someone else try to take my place? It almost killed me. I can't let you go. I'm sorry, I just fucking can't.”

“Oh, fuck you, Joost.”

The words hit the air before you could even think to stop them, sharp and laced with all the heavy, bitter poison you’d been swallowing for months.

Joost flinched back a fraction of an inch, his mouth hanging slightly open as if you’d physically slapped him. The look in his eyes instantly fractured, turning into something completely different.

“Fuck you,” you repeated, your voice stronger now, the numbness completely burning away. You pushed yourself off the counter, forcing him to take a half-step back just so you could look him dead in the eyes. “You don't get to do this. You don't get to stay away for months, let me drown in my own head, and then show up here acting like you're the victim because some guy touched my arm.”

“That's not—”

“No!” you cut him off. “You said it yourself—you were tired. You wanted to catch your breath. So you threw us away because it was easier. And now that you see someone else might actually appreciate what you threw in the trash, suddenly you care? Suddenly you're in a panic?”

Joost stood there, completely defenseless. He looked like he wanted to reach out and grab you, to pull you against his chest and make you stop saying the brutal words that were clearly tearing him apart, but he didn't dare cross the line.

“It's not like that,” he choked out. He shook his head, a single tear finally escaping his eye and tracking through the stubble on his cheek. “It's not because of him. It’s because I’m a fucking idiot who needed to see the worst-case scenario to realize I’ve been living in a nightmare since the day you left. I care every single day.”

A cold, bitter smile tugged at the corner of your lips. The absolute desperation in his voice didn’t soften you—it gave you a sudden sense of control. You were so sick of being the one hurting in the dark. It was his turn.

You took a slow step forward, your shoes crunching deliberately on the glass, closing the distance until your chest was literally brushing his. You reached up, your fingers tracing the sharp line of his jawline, your thumb deliberately rubbing over his lower lip, smearing the wetness there.

Joost’s breath hitched, his eyes going wide and completely dark as he stared down at you, frozen.

“Do you really care, Joost?” you whispered, your voice dangerously soft, entirely devoid of the tears from before.

Before he could answer, you fisted your hand in his hair, pulling his head down aggressively and crashing your mouth onto his.

He didn't just give in; he completely dissolved. It was a filthy, desperate kiss, and you enjoyed every single second of it. You bit his lower lip just hard enough to make him gasp, and the moment his mouth parted, you tasted him deeply, your other hand sliding down to grip the back of his neck, anchoring him to you.

Joost let out a high, ragged whimper against your mouth, his hands instantly flying to your hips. He gripped your waist like a drowning man, trying to pull your lower body flush against his, completely suffocated by the sudden, aggressive heat of you. He was shaking, silently begging through the kiss.

You let him taste the hope for three more agonizing seconds, letting him think he was finally getting you back, before you deliberately dug your nails into the nape of his neck.

Then, you pulled away.

Joost stumbled forward a half-step, chasing your mouth with a dazed, pathetic look on his face. His lips were swollen, his chest heaving, and his hands hovered in the empty air. “Please, don’t,” he choked out, his voice completely broken and pathetic.

You looked him up and down, your expression completely blank, letting him see just how little power he had over you right now.

“Clean up your mess, Joost,” you said quietly.

You didn't wait for a response. You turned your back on him, walked straight to the door, and threw it open. The noise of the party flooded the room, but you didn't look back. You stepped out into the hallway and let the kitchen door slam shut behind you, leaving him entirely desperate, ruined, and alone in the dark.

That night was exceptionally warm. You sat on the balcony of your small apartment in Amsterdam, staring up at an inky sky heavy with stars, which seemed to be actively trying to soothe you with its own deep calmness. Everything around you was covered in an unfamiliar silence; even the city, usually a chaotic symphony of sounds, had grown completely quiet. It was as if the universe itself knew that your usually thought-filled head desperately needed this short reprieve.

You couldn't help but reflect on how drastically your life had changed over the past few months. It was a staggering amount. Yet, at quiet, isolated moments like these, your thoughts inevitably wandered straight back to him again.

Deep inside your chest, despite the steady passing of the weeks, a silent, exhausting war was still raging; a heavy longing constantly clashed with an anger, and beautiful memories repeatedly collided with your desperate attempts to forget him.

Your heart refused to let go, even though your reason had long since packed up and departed, and even though you knew with absolute certainty that leaving everything behind had been your only option at the time. Still, a foolish, desperate part of you clung to the ghost of that one specific moment—the moment when everything between you had felt entirely possible.

That particular, almost unreal moment, when his blue eyes had looked down at you as if you were the absolute center of his universe. As if you were everything.

And you had truly believed back then, wrapped in his warmth, that this love would be enough to save you both.

It wasn’t.

The cigarette resting between your lips smoldered slowly, burning unevenly as if it wasn't even entirely sure it wanted to last until the end. The smoke sharply irritated your throat with every slow draw, but you didn’t care in the slightest—that bitter, burning sensation was the only tangible thing giving you any true solace that night.

The biting chill of the air mixed strangely with the sweet, lingering scent of your shampoo, creating a bizarrely familiar, comforting aura around you. You tightly closed your eyes, but not with the intention of falling asleep. Rather, you did it to simply disappear, if only for a moment—to vanish from the suffocating memories, to escape from him, and to completely disconnect from yourself.

Throughout these past weeks, you had actually felt good. Maybe you weren't ecstatically happy, but you were peaceful. Stable. Your new life was slowly, reliably moving forward, day by day, and you had genuinely felt like you were regaining pieces of yourself anew with every single morning.

You learned how to drink your morning coffee without his voice or the sound of him moving around the kitchen. You learned how to lie down on just your side of the bed every night, falling asleep without that quiet waiting for the mattress to move under his weight when he came into the room late.

You finally stopped checking your phone screen every single time he crossed your mind, even for a second. Even his name, which used to make it hard to catch your breath not that long ago, slowly lost its power. It just stopped hurting the way it did at the beginning.

But still, somewhere deep down, a quiet uncertainty kept smoldering. It was small, barely there, but it just wouldn't go away. It felt exactly like the strange, heavy silence right before a storm hits.

You had this constant, lingering feeling that something was about to happen—something that would completely mess up the peace you had worked so hard to build, shake up your heart all over again, and brutally remind you that no ending is ever really final until you completely stop feeling.

And the truth was, you still felt. You felt way too much.

Suddenly, the sharp, loud buzz of the doorbell snapped you straight out of your thoughts. Your heart gave a sudden, panicked thud against your ribs. Slightly alarmed, you hastily pressed the burning end of your cigarette against the cold metal edge of the ashtray, watching the last bit of smoke disappear.

You quickly stepped off the balcony and went back inside the apartment, the sudden warmth of the room hitting your face. You walked carefully toward the front door, your bare feet making no sound against the floorboards as you wondered who on earth could be standing on the other side at this hour.

You definitely weren’t expecting anyone at this hour. Three o'clock in the morning is not the time for a normal visit, no matter how you looked at it. Besides, in this new city, living completely by yourself, any unexpected knock at the door had every right to make you feel anxious.

As you walked slowly through the dark hallway, a million different scenarios started running through your head. What if it was a thief trying the handle? What if it was just some drunk person who got the wrong apartment? Or maybe the neighbor from upstairs needed help with something?

Your heart beat faster and faster against your ribs, and your hand just hovered over the cold metal doorknob, almost afraid to actually touch it. You reached out, turned the deadbolt with a loud, sharp click, and slowly began to pull the door open. You could feel the nervous tension moving straight down your spine like a cold shiver.

And then, right in that split second, something else crossed your mind—a thought so completely crazy and irrational that you literally stopped breathing for a moment.

What if it’s...?

Your heart was beating so loudly it felt like the only sound left in the entire world, thumping hard against your chest.

The door swung open all the way, the hallway light spilling into your dark apartment.

And then, you saw him.

Joost stood right there in front of you, swaying slightly on his feet and leaning his heavy shoulder against the wooden door frame to keep his balance. His bloodshot eyes told you everything you needed to know about exactly how much alcohol he had tonight, but despite the mess he was in, he still looked just as frustratingly good as always.

You were completely too shocked to form a single word. You just stood there frozen, your fingers tightly gripping your side of the door frame as if your own knees were about to buckle underneath you.

Slowly, Joost lifted his heavy gaze from the floor. His eyes moved unsteadily down your body, taking you in, before they finally came to a stop on your face. For a long, suffocating moment, he didn't say a word. He just stared at you in the dim hallway light, trying to read your expression—almost as if he were desperately trying to check if you were still the exact same girl he had let walk away.

“What—what the hell are you doing here?” You managed to ask, your voice a hushed, shaky whisper that barely escaped your tight throat.

“May I… can I just come in?” He stammered, rambling slightly as he tripped over his words. He was using that same low, familiar voice that used to easily calm you down whenever your anxiety got bad, and hearing it right now felt like a punch to the stomach.

“Answer my damn question,” you snapped back, trying your absolute best to keep your shaking nerves in check, even though you could feel that fragile peace you built over the last few weeks starting to crack wide open.

Joost looked at you again, his hazy eyes swimming as if he could no longer focus on a single point in front of him. Then, completely out of nowhere, a tiny, almost mocking smile pulled at the corner of his lips.

“I've been thinking about you lately, you know?” He replied quietly, his voice dropping into a low, rough murmur.

“I've been thinking a lot lately,” he added. He let out a heavy sigh, leaning his entire body weight back against the wooden doorframe, as if just being alive and standing right here in front of you was completely overwhelming him. “And see where that got me?”

He slowly lifted his arms and spread his hands out wide in a totally helpless gesture. He just stood there, completely exposed, looking at you not like the person who had walked away and left you behind, but like someone who had been brutally abandoned by the entire world.

There was a raw, cracking sound in his voice that would have completely broken you in half in the past. But today? Today you weren’t that same person anymore. Right now, more than anything, you just felt incredibly, deeply annoyed.

To my door? After so many months? The angry words were right on the tip of your tongue, but you couldn't force them out. Something in his empty, completely extinguished—maybe even pleading—eyes made you freeze right where you stood. And in that heavy silence, every single thing started to hurt all over again. It felt as if none of your wounds had actually healed at all, as if just the sound of his voice had the terrifying power to make you feel tiny and helpless again.

“Don't you ever come here again, Joost,” you said quickly, forcing out the words by gathering up every single leftover scrap of your willpower.

You tried to push the heavy door shut right in his face, but suddenly, you felt a sharp resistance. His large hand shot forward, gripping the edge to stop the door from closing.

You stood completely paralyzed for a split second, the air leaving your lungs. Your heart was slamming so loudly against your ribs that it drowned out your own thoughts. His fingers clenched tighter and tighter around the wooden doorframe, turning his knuckles white, as if he knew with absolute certainty that if he let go of that wood right now, he would lose his last actual chance on earth.

“I miss you so much,” he added quickly, the words coming out as a rough, desperate whisper.

You froze completely from the inside out.

That was all it took. All he had to do was say those few words, and he had you right back where he wanted you. Just like that.

You absolutely hated yourself in that moment. You hated how deeply his words still shook you, even though you knew he had no right to say them anymore—not after everything he had put you through, and definitely not after he was the one who chose to pack up and leave.

And yet, you just stood there. His voice felt like it was trapped right under your skin, his eyes were locked onto yours, and your trembling hand was still glued to the doorknob.

Slowly, your hands dropped down to your sides, completely limp, as if your body was just too exhausted to fight the internal struggle anymore. The entire scene—him a total mess in your doorway, and you standing right on the edge of your sanity—suddenly became too much to bear.

You gave him one last look. There were no words left to say, and the anger had completely burned itself out. It was just a look that said enough—not about him, and not about yourself, but about this endless, exhausting struggle for something that had stopped being certain a long time ago.

You turned around slowly, leaving the open hallway behind, and walked back into the dark apartment. You didn't wait to see what he would do, and you didn't say a single word to encourage him, but you didn't pull the door closed behind you, either.

And that was all it took. That was enough.

Without a word, you gave him the green light.

And Joost, just like he always did, stepped right into the space where you could never quite bring yourself to throw him out.

Joost closed the door behind him with a quiet, drawn-out click of the latch. For a long moment, he just stood there completely motionless in the dark hallway, as if he couldn't quite believe he was actually inside, as if he was terrified that waking up from a dream would pull him right back to the street outside.

After a few seconds, his heavy footsteps echoed through the quiet apartment. They hit the wooden floor with that same, familiar rhythm you knew by heart. He followed you slowly and without saying a single word, moving through the dark like a shadow that already knew every single corner of the place—because his memory belonged here just as much as you did.

He walked into the living room and stopped, his eyes moving over the couch, the crowded bookshelf, and finally landing on that old lamp he used to hate so much, which was still sitting exactly where you had placed it. Everything looked so familiar to him, and yet completely foreign at the same time.

This was the exact kind of room where you two used to spend every single free moment together, wrapped up in total silence or laughing until your stomachs hurt. But tonight, there was no laughter left. There was only a heavy, suffocating tension that filled every inch of the space between you.

You sat down in the armchair and immediately pulled your legs up tightly under you, curling into a ball as if you wanted to take up as little space in the room as humanly possible—or maybe just to hide from whatever was about to happen next. Your fingers dug hard into the soft blanket draped over the backrest, holding on for dear life.

Joost stood just a few feet away from you, shifting uncertainly. His large hands hung completely helpless at his sides, looking as if he had absolutely no idea what to do with them, or with his own body anymore.

For a long moment, he didn't say a single thing. He just stood there looking down at you, then at the quiet room, watching the old memories settle into every single corner of your new apartment, heavy as dust. He swallowed hard, his throat moving painfully.

“A lot has changed here,” he finally muttered, letting out a short, quiet chuckle that lacked any real humor.

You didn't move. You just looked up at him from under your eyelashes, your face masked in that same tired, heavy calmness you had worn since opening the door.

“Yes, Joost,” you whispered softly, your voice cutting straight through the quiet room. “Everything has changed.”

He looked at you again—longer and deeper this time—as if he was desperately trying to catch a glimpse of something in your eyes that he hadn't been able to find anywhere else for months: something familiar, something that could finally make sense of his messy life.

After a moment, he sank heavily to the floor right in front of your chair without saying a word. He sat there slightly hunched over, resting his arms on his knees, still refusing to take his eyes off yours.

He was sitting so close to you now that you could feel his warmth, yet he felt a million miles away.

The air in the room grew thick and heavy. Every single thing you both had left unsaid over those long months seemed to gather right there between you, crowding the small space without mercy. The tension was so solid you could have cut it with a knife.

Your throat went completely dry, as if your own body automatically knew that words were about to be spoken tonight that probably should never be allowed out loud.

Joost just stared up at you with that terrifying intensity you knew all too well—the exact look of a man who once held you in his hands, completely lost you, and was now trying everything to get you back. Even though, deep down, he probably had no idea what he would even do with you if he actually won you over again.

“I miss you,” he repeated after a long silence. This time his voice was even quieter, as if he was suddenly terrified of the massive weight of those words, as if saying them out loud meant he finally had to admit the truth to himself. He had to admit that the longing was completely eating him alive. He had to admit that something inside him had broken.

And you?

You felt those words stab straight into your chest like a dull knife. It wasn't the first time he had cut you like this, but it hurt just as bad as the very beginning. You honestly didn't know what was worse: hearing that confession come out of his mouth again, or the terrifying fact that a part of you still desperately wanted to believe him.

“Don't do this... Joost, why do you have to do this?” you asked, your voice shaking at the edges even though you tried your absolute best to sound firm and grounded.

Joost furrowed his brow, tilting his head slightly as he looked up at you from the floor.

“Do what?” he asked, his voice dripping with a fake innocence, even though he knew exactly what he was doing to you.

“Bring all of this up,” you said, the words suddenly rushing out of your mouth faster and faster as the panic and anger took over. “Why do you have to bring up the fact that you miss me? What is the actual point of saying that to me right now?”

The silence that settled between you now was even heavier than before.

Because that was the absolute cruelest part of his sudden return. It wasn't just the shock that he was actually being here; it was the fact that he had carelessly ripped open every single wound you had spent months trying to heal.

You looked down at him, your eyes completely full of a deep, heavy weariness.

“You don't get to say that to me,” you said, your voice dropping much lower after a long moment. “Not after everything you did.”

Joost looked down, lowering his gaze to escape the crushing weight of your words.

“I can't help it, really. When I'm drunk, my brain always finds its way back to you, you know?” he replied, a tiny half-smile pulling at his lips. But that smile was totally hollow and cracked—it looked like the face of someone trying to joke about a self-inflicted wound.

Your eyes instantly glazed over with a sudden rush of emotions you had promised yourself you would never experience again.

“Well, maybe you should stop getting drunk and start taking some fucking responsibility,” you hissed. Your voice faltered on the last word, and you hastily scrambled up from your seat, desperately wanting to escape, even if just for a second, from being right there at his fingertips.

Your body moved way faster than your thoughts could keep up. You just desperately needed space, air—literally anything that didn’t smell like him and alcohol.

Joost raised his head and watched you move away, a sudden look hitting his face as if he had just realized, in real-time, that he was losing you all over again. Only this time, there was no door for him to slam, and no text message for you to ignore. He scrambled to his feet, his balance still slightly off as he wobbled on the floorboards.

“You think I don't want to fix this?” He asked quietly, his voice cracking. “You think I haven't been trying?”

You turned around slowly to face him, your gaze saying absolutely everything words never could.

“No,” you whispered, the room going dead silent. “I think you only start trying when it's already too late.”

Joost froze completely. Your words cut through the heavy air like shattered glass, and a dark, painful shadow appeared deep in his eyes.

“I didn't know how,” he whispered back, throwing the words out like they could somehow justify everything. “I never learned how to be what you needed me to be.”

You just let out a quiet, exhausted sigh and looked away, unable to even stare at his face anymore.

“But I'm here right now,” he said, his voice turning almost pleading as he took a sudden, unstable step toward you.

You instantly snapped your hand up in the air, palm out, to block him from getting any closer.

“Joost, we're way past that already,” you said. Your words hung in the space between you, incredibly heavy with nothing but pure disappointment.

“But, please…” he whispered, his voice completely faltering on the last word, as if that single, pathetic request was the absolute last shred of hope he had left.

He just stood there, looking like a million different things he wanted to say were physically stuck right between his heart and his throat.

“Joost, stop it. Besides, I’m seeing someone,” you said, your tone calm but completely unyielding. The second the words left your mouth, it felt like every single molecule of air in the room instantly turned to ice.

His eyes widened slightly in pure shock, and then they turned pitch-black with a messy, ugly mixture of pain, jealousy, and total helplessness. He just stared at you, looking completely stunned, like he had just been hit across the face.

“W-what…?” he muttered, his voice breaking entirely. He looked genuinely surprised by just how violently that sentence had managed to hurt him.

You stayed completely silent. You just stood there behind your raised hand, giving him all the time in the world to swallow the bitter truth of what he had just heard—the undeniable fact that you were no longer the girl he used to know, and your life didn't belong to him anymore.

All of a sudden, Joost closed the distance between you in a sharp, abrupt blur and grabbed your arm firmly. The second his fingers clamped down, a sharp, throbbing pain shot straight up your shoulder. His grip was entirely too tight, fueled by an ugly panic—like a man completely losing his grip on his own mind, unable to stop the anger building up inside him.

Your heart rate instantly went through the roof, slamming against your ribs as your mind frantically began to scan the room, looking for any possible way out of this sudden trap.

“Let me go,” you whispered, forcing your voice to stay steady as you tried desperately not to sound terrified, even though a cold, suffocating fear was rising fast in your chest.

His eyes glittered strangely in the dim light, full of violent, messy contradictions—deep longing and pure despair, but mixed with an anxiety that had officially crossed a dangerous line.

“You gotta be fucking kidding me,” he snapped suddenly, his voice incredibly raw and broken up by his heavy, nervous breathing. “You are mine. What the fuck do you mean you're seeing someone?”

His words hit your face like a splash of freezing water. You tightly clenched your jaw, using every ounce of energy in your body to hide your fear, even though your pulse was screaming in your ears.

“I don’t have to tell you a single thing!” you hissed right back into his face.

Suddenly, his grip weakened. It was as if a switch flipped in his head and he finally realized just how horribly he had crossed the line, and what he had actually just done to you. He slowly withdrew his large hand, letting his fingers slip off your skin, as his shaken gaze wandered somewhere far away, unable to look you in the eye anymore.

He remained completely silent, and the space between you turned brutally uncomfortable. It was filled to the brim with words that neither of you wanted to say out loud, but they hung heavily in the air anyway, ticking like a bomb ready to explode at any given second.

Your knees finally gave out, and you sank all the way down to the floor right in front of him, hot tears spilling over and running down your cheeks completely against your will. You forced your head up, your eyes meeting his horrified, wide-eyed gaze.

“I'm so sorry,” he whispered, his voice completely breaking in his throat as he dropped to his knees right beside you on the floor boards.

“It's too late for that,” you replied, the words coming out just as quietly, hollow and empty.

You carefully forced yourself back up onto your feet, feeling the heavy weight of his eyes watching your every single movement. You walked away from him, opened the balcony door again, and stepped outside, driven by a sudden, almost desperate physical need to smoke. The night air outside felt much cooler than it had before, but the chill brought a sudden, blessed relief to your burning skin.

With badly trembling fingers, you fished a single cigarette out of the pack. Every tiny movement felt like it required a massive amount of physical strength you just didn't possess anymore. You flicked the lighter, and it finally caught on the second try—the small flame illuminating your tear-stained face in a brief, golden flash.

You inhaled deeply, letting the thick smoke fill your lungs as if it were your only actual lifeline. For one beautiful, fleeting moment, the entire world stood completely still.

Then, stepping out so quietly you barely even noticed, you felt his presence right next to you again. He stood so close his arm was nearly touching yours, radiating a heavy heat. He didn't say a single word at first; he just stared blankly up at the dark night sky, as if he were frantically searching the stars for an answer that didn't exist.

“We were good together,” he said, his voice barely audible over the faint sounds of the city. He slowly turned his head, looking down at you with that exact same familiar softness in his eyes—the kind of look that used to easily break your heart into pieces and then put it right back together again.

“Weren't we?” he added after a long, painful moment. You could hear how desperately he needed you to confirm his version of the past, to tell him that it hadn't all been a mistake.

“I guess so,” you replied coolly. You didn't look at him as you pressed the glowing orange tip of your cigarette against the cold metal railing of the balcony, putting it out for good.

Because it was the honest truth; you were good together. You had been incredible, right up until the exact moment everything started to fall apart.

You finally shifted your gaze back toward the blond man standing beside you. His bloodshot eyes were barely open now, completely filled with a heavy, overwhelming fatigue and total resignation. His entire body looked completely limp. Every ounce of the stubborn strength that had held him upright tonight had just left him all at once. He leaned his heavy weight against the balcony railing, shaky and completely fragile—a total, heartbreaking far cry from the man you once knew.

On the horizon, dawn was finally beginning to break. The pale, watery light of a new morning slowly spilled over the slate rooftops of Amsterdam, ruthlessly exposing everything the darkness of the night had tried so hard to hide.

“I think you should go to sleep,” you said quietly. You couldn't bring yourself to look him in the eye anymore. Your tone was completely calm but entirely distant, as if you were speaking to someone standing much too far away to actually hear your voice clearly.

Joost didn't answer you right away. He just nodded almost imperceptibly, a tiny, defeated slump of his shoulders, like he knew with absolute certainty that he had completely run out of things to say.

“Come on,” you muttered softly, reaching out to take his hand. His fingers felt incredibly heavy and inert in yours, lacking any of the desperate strength he had used against you only minutes before.

You led him slowly back through the quiet apartment, taking the exact, familiar route you both used to walk with smiles on your faces. But now, there were no smiles left. There was only a suffocating silence, punctuated by the slow, quiet clatter of his unsteady footsteps dragging against the wooden floorboards.

The second you crossed the bedroom threshold, you felt a heavy warmth rise up inside your chest, thick with the scent of the past. You helped him sit down on the edge of the mattress, and he didn't offer a single bit of protest; he just looked up at you with completely glassy, exhausted eyes, looking like he desperately wanted to force out one more sentence.

You slowly pulled off his heavy jacket, then his t-shirt, before reaching down to unfasten his belt because you knew with absolute certainty he wouldn't be able to manage the clumsy movements himself. Joost watched you through his messy eyelashes, a silly, drunken grin suddenly pulling at his lips.

“All I had to do was get completely wasted and make a massive scene at your front door for you to undress me again? Oh, I’m absolutely here for it,” he chuckled quietly under his breath.

“Oh, shut up, please,” you snapped softly, hurriedly pulling his pants down and completely avoiding his gaze so he couldn't see the conflict in your face. “You can sleep here tonight. I'm going to go sleep on the couch.”

Joost blindly let his heavy body fall backward onto the bed, his head sinking deep into the pillow as if it weighed twice as much as the rest of his body. He looked up at you through his disheveled, blond hair. He looked utterly defeated by the alcohol, but there was still that same, incredibly helpless shred of hope glittering in his eyes.

“I want you to sleep right here, actually,” he said quietly, his voice dropping so low it was as if he were terrified that speaking any louder would scare you away for good. “Please…?”

You stood frozen over him for a long, agonizing moment, your mind frantically running through every single possible scenario, every warning sign, and every mistake you were about to repeat. Finally, you let out a defeated breath, gave a silent nod, and sat down right next to him on the soft mattress.

“Okay,” you whispered into the dim room, the words tasting like a lie and a relief all at once. “One last time.”

Without a single word of warning, Joost reached out and pulled you firmly against him, dragging you down until you were lying completely face to face with him on the mattress. His warm, uneven breathing mingled directly with yours in the small space between your lips. A chaotic mixture of immense relief and lingering anxiety shone deep in his eyes; he was clearly still fighting a war with himself, desperately trying to find any leftover piece that could fix what had long since fallen apart.

His eyes quickly scanned every inch of your face, frantic, as if searching for the answers to questions that had been weighing heavily on his chest for months. But after a few seconds, his eyelids fluttered and closed. He was completely unable to fight the wave of tiredness pulling him under anymore.

For a brief moment, you just lay there watching his calm, sleeping face, trying to commit every single detail to memory. Your hand moved completely against your will, your fingers gently rising to touch his cheek. You glided your fingertips softly across his skin, a silent, desperate attempt to keep him right here with you, at least for this one moment.

You finally let your own eyes close, desperately wanting to just fall asleep and forget every single part of this goddamn day.

“I love you. I've never stopped loving you.”

The quiet whisper materialized right next to your ear, so soft and fragile that it almost completely disappeared into the morning silence. Your heart instantly skipped a beat, slamming hard against your ribs, and a tiny, involuntary smile appeared on your lips before you could stop it.

“Goodnight, Joost,” you whispered back into the dark.

But there was no answer. He was already deep asleep, his heavy breathing steady against your neck.

That night, when Joost closed the door to your apartment behind him, something deep inside you permanently broke. Maybe it was your heart, or maybe it was just your inner self being violently torn in half because that blond man had taken a piece of you with him out into the night—a piece you knew you could never get back.

You didn’t sleep a single wink that night. Not the next night, nor the one after that.

Quiet, ragged sobs were the only sound that escaped your lips in the dark, as if all the agonizing pain you had been suppressing for months had finally burst through the dam. The tears seemed endless, a desperate attempt at a relief that never actually came.

You felt entirely hollow, utterly alone, yet a sick voice in your head whispered that you had no right to feel this way—as if you were somehow deceiving yourself by grieving a relationship that had never officially been yours.

Joost didn’t say a single word. Days bled into weeks, and you sat trapped in a silence that felt like an endless, bottomless abyss.

Somewhere deep in your soul, you stubbornly held onto a quiet, pathetic sliver of hope that maybe he had changed his mind. That he regretted walking out. Naively, you waited for even a single text, a single word. Just one sign to prove you weren’t completely alone in this misery.

But nothing came. The phone stayed entirely silent, and Joost seemed to have vanished off the face of the earth.

It was pure, unadulterated torture. Every single corner of your apartment reminded you of your shared moments; every object, every mundane detail was a witness to his past presence. No matter where you looked, your mind’s eye only saw him—his easy smile, his piercing gaze, his casual touch. In every heavy silence, his loud laughter echoed; in every shadow, you could still feel the phantom warmth of his presence.

Your thoughts kept violently returning to him, no matter how hard you tried to beat them back. Every attempt to forget became a losing battle, and each time you stared at the empty spot on the couch where he used to sit, your heart fractured a little more.

Now, sitting curled up on the cold windowsill in the living room, you watched the crowded city street below. The world beyond the glass lived to its own chaotic rhythm, completely oblivious to the devastating storm raging inside your chest. People walked past each other, talking and laughing, but you felt entirely disconnected from humanity, like a ghost watching from the sidelines.

Five weeks had passed since that fateful night. Five agonizing weeks of absolute radio silence. It hurt a little less now—the sharp, stabbing pain having dulled into a heavy, permanent ache—but God, it still hurt so badly.

You felt entirely paralyzed, stuck in a cruel deadlock where each day was just a reflection of the one before. The world ruthlessly moved forward as if nothing had happened, while you remained frozen in place, trying to accept the bitter reality that nothing would ever be the same again.

From the suffocating flood of thoughts that were once again beginning to gather above you like dark storm clouds, you were violently pulled away by the sharp chime of an incoming notification.

Before your brain could even process the sound, your heart skipped a violent beat. Your hand trembled as you reached for the phone on the sill and tapped the glowing screen. The second your eyes locked onto the sender's name and the message, your heart instantly sank like a stone in your chest.

Joost: We need to talk.

One short sentence. That was all it took to turn your world completely upside down in a fraction of a second. In an instant, a massive, suffocating wave of conflicting emotions crashed over you—fear, anger, sadness, and somewhere, buried deep beneath the panic, a tiny spark of hope that you weren't even sure you should dare to trust.

You flipped the phone over and over in your trembling hands, feeling the crushing physical weight of the decision that now stood squarely before you. Your mind was a swirling, chaotic vortex.

You knew, with absolute certainty, that you couldn’t just ignore him. Not after everything. After he had left you drowning in uncertainty for five agonizing weeks, you couldn’t let this go without a real explanation.

But why now? Why so completely out of the blue?

Those were the exact questions hammering against your skull, and you couldn’t come up with a single reasonable answer. So much had fundamentally shifted inside you during the quiet weeks that had passed, and though you tried your hardest to keep your emotions entirely in check, you couldn't shake the devastating realization that something inside your chest had permanently died.

Maybe this message was the final, messy end of your story, or maybe it wasn't. But what had happened between you had happened, and the scar of his rejection would stay with you forever.

Could what was meant to be still possibly exist after all of this destruction? You took a deep breath and squeezed your eyes shut, desperately trying to gather your scattered thoughts. You felt the toxic unease in your muscles growing by the second, as if your body were bracing itself for a collision that could no longer be stopped.

when and where?

Sending the message took you barely a fraction of a second—a simple, definitive tap of your thumb against the glass—but inside your head, the flow of time violently ground to a halt.

The phone stayed glued to your palm. You stared down at the glowing screen, your eyes tracking the empty space beneath your sent text, completely frozen as you waited for a reply. Each passing second dragged on endlessly, a form of psychological torture, as if the universe itself were deliberately holding its breath just to play with your patience.

Then, cut short by a sudden vibration, the screen lit up with a fresh notification. Your heart leaped into your throat as your eyes quickly tore through the short, blunt messages.

Joost: My place in an hour. Joost: I’ll be waiting.

The words were simple, almost entirely devoid of emotion. Yet, you stared down at the glowing screen, analyzing the shape of the letters as if your very survival depended on decoding their hidden meaning.

I'll be waiting. Those three words echoed through the hollow chambers of your mind over and over again like an endless loop.

Without a single second of further hesitation, you forced yourself up from the cold windowsill and decided to prepare. Your movements were entirely automatic, almost mechanical, as if your body had completely hijacked your mind to spare you from paralyzing panic.

You flung open the closet doors and began sifting through your clothes with numb fingers, desperately trying to select something appropriate—something clean and structured that wouldn’t betray the suffocating emotional chaos ripping through your chest, but also wouldn’t look too calculated or indifferent. In your fragile state, every single mundane detail, every tiny wardrobe decision, suddenly felt like a massive life-or-death choice.

The truth was, you were absolutely terrified of this meeting. A massive, wounded part of you—the part that had spent thirty-five days sobbing into the dark, feeling discarded and deeply disappointed—would have honestly preferred for Joost to remain a distant, unreal memory.

But there was also that other part of you. The stubborn, deeply emotional part that still desperately yearned for the low rumble of his voice, for the piercing, protective way he used to look at you, as if he could see a version of you that you were completely blind to. It was that relentless, foolish part of you that ultimately pushed you forward, forcing your hand to grab a jacket from the hanger and reach for your keys on the counter.

The walk to his apartment passed unusually fast—almost too fast, as if time itself were actively mocking you, intentionally stealing every precious second you could have used to gather your scattered thoughts. The biting, cold evening air wrapping around your neck didn’t help to clear your head either. Your palms were damp with pure nerves inside your pockets, and your heart was pounding so violently against your ribs that you genuinely feared a random stranger on the street might hear it.

You tried desperately to organize your thoughts, mentally rehearsing the guarded, careful words you wanted to say. But your mind refused to cooperate, instead running in frantic, terrifying circles around everything that could have possibly happened over the last five weeks to make him send that text.

Before you could even brace yourself, you were already standing inside his building, facing his front door.

You stared at the gleaming metal number 83 hanging on the dark wood—a number you had seen a hundred times before, a place that used to spell total comfort. Now, it looked foreign and imposing. You felt your fingers tremble slightly as you slowly pulled your hand from your pocket, your chest rising and falling unevenly with every difficult, shallow breath.

As you raised your hand, your knuckles hovering a mere inch from the door, a thousand worst-case scenarios violently collided in your mind.

What if he isn’t actually alone?

What if this meeting just ends in a deeper, more permanent kind of pain?

Finally, your knuckles met the solid wood, making a soft, almost painfully shy sound that felt entirely too small for the massive weight of the moment. For a split second, the heavy silence of the hallway stretched out endlessly, torturing you, before the faint sound of footsteps approached from the other side. Your heart instantly rose into your throat, choking you.

The lock clicked, and the door opened hesitantly, swinging back to reveal him.

You froze as you looked at him. Joost stood there in the entryway, dressed in nothing but simple gray sweatpants and a faded white t-shirt. His blond hair was a chaotic mess, sticking up wildly in every direction as if he had been running his hands through it for hours. His face looked profoundly tired, carrying a heavy, dark shadow beneath his eyes that you had never seen on him before. He looked exactly the same, yet somehow, the man standing in front of you felt like an absolute stranger.

For a long, agonizing beat, neither of you spoke a single word. You just stared at each other across the threshold, the air between you thickening so intensely it felt like a tangible, physical force you could reach out and touch. You opened your mouth, but nothing came out—every single guarded sentence you had so meticulously prepared on the walk over had suddenly evaporated into thin air.

“Hey,” he said finally. His voice was incredibly quiet, barely audible over the rush of blood hammering in your ears.

“Hi,” you replied, the word slipping out just as softly as you felt your mind completely abandon you, leaving you entirely unprotected against the sight of him.

His blue eyes drifted slowly across your face, tracing the lines of your features as if desperately trying to read the chaotic thoughts swirling inside your head. For a fraction of a second, it seemed like he was on the absolute verge of saying something real—but he choked it back, remaining silent as he took a deliberate step backward to give you room to enter.

“Will you come in?” he asked, gesturing vaguely into the quiet apartment.

Without a word, you timidly stepped through the threshold. Your movements were agonizingly slow and cautious, every step feeling exactly like walking on paper-thin ice that could shatter into a million jagged pieces at any second.

Under the intense, watchful gaze of his, you knelt to slip off your shoes, forcing every muscle in your body to control the trembling in your hands before it completely betrayed you.

You carefully hung your coat on the familiar metal hook, making a desperate, conscious effort to avoid his eyes—because even without looking, you could feel his gaze piercing right through your skin like a physical heat.

The atmosphere between you was suffocating, entirely poisoned by a heavy uncertainty. The silence that settled over the apartment was almost a physical, palpable entity, and you had the sickening feeling that a single wrong word or clumsy movement on your part would shatter the fragile peace in the worst possible way.

When Joost turned and moved toward the kitchen, your body acted almost instinctively, following the familiar path behind him. Stepping into the small room, you watched as he leaned heavily against the kitchen counter, tightly crossing his tattooed arms over his white t-shirt. He looked deeply thoughtful, yet his posture remained incredibly tense—like a man who had initiated a collision but now had absolutely no idea how to handle the wreckage.

“Do you want anything to drink?” he asked suddenly. The question cut sharply through the heavy silence, but his voice sounded surprisingly calm, even though you could still clearly see the anxious shadow of uncertainty flickering in his blue eyes.

“No. No, thank you, I'm really not in the mood,” you replied quickly, forcing your tone into a polite, neutral mask. “I don't want to impose anyway.”

Joost looked straight at you, a sudden flash of sharp disappointment washing across his tired features. He fell completely quiet for a long beat, as if meticulously weighing the exact gravity of every single word he might say next. His crossed arms slowly dropped to grip the edge of the counter, and his chest rose with a deep, deliberate breath.

“You know you don't have to feel like that…” he started, his voice dropping into a much softer, more familiar register. “You never have to be afraid of imposing on me. Not ever.”

“You know, Joost, sometimes what you say is a lot easier than what I actually feel,” you replied, your voice trembling so hard it betrayed your calm facade instantly.

You forced yourself to look him in the eyes, but the sheer, agonizing intimacy of his gaze was too much to bear. You couldn’t hold it for more than a single moment before you had to look away.

He slowly, deliberately began to step toward you, closing the distance until the space between your chests was separated by a mere fraction of a millimeter. You could feel the radiating warmth of his breath against your skin just before his hand rose, his fingers gently, hesitantly caressing the curve of your cheek.

Your entire body tensed violently in that exact moment, as if the electric power of Joost's touch had the capability to shatter your remaining sanity into dust. Yet, despite the panic screaming in your mind, his presence still held that same magnetic, gravity-defying pull—something dangerous that made it physically impossible for you to lean away from his touch.

“Look,” his voice was barely a whisper, a low rumble trying desperately to navigate the wreckage of the last five weeks.

Your eyes darted up to meet his involuntarily, trapped by the emotion in his tone.

“I—I didn't know what to do,” he confessed, his thumb tracing a slow line across your cheekbone. “I'm sorry. I'm so incredibly sorry for everything that I've done, and for everything I haven't done. For hurting you like a coward. For leaving you entirely alone when you clearly needed me the most. I know a stupid apology isn't enough, and I know this can't magically fix what happened, but…”

He paused for a moment, his jaw tightening as he struggled to gather his scattered thoughts. Inside your own mind, there was a sudden, deafening emptiness. Every single word spilling from his lips felt like a powerful spell, completely robbing you of your ability to think logically or maintain your anger.

“I don't know how to fix what I broke,” he whispered, his blue eyes boring straight into yours with a raw, bleeding honesty. “But I can promise you one thing—you will never have to go through this alone again. I want to be with you. I really do. I will do absolutely anything to fix this. If you'll just let me—if you'll just let me back into your life.”

You found yourself frozen at a terrifying standstill. A desperate, aching part of you wanted nothing more than to throw yourself into his arms, to bury your face in his chest and pretend that everything was finally returning to normal. But the other part—the guarded, wounded part—violently resisted, absolutely terrified of trusting him again, paralyzed by the fear that he would just drop you and shatter your heart a second time.

“You left me,” you began, your voice starting as a trembling whisper before a massive, sudden surge of hot sorrow and anger rushed up from your chest. “You fucking left me, Joost! Don't you even understand what you did?”

Joost stood entirely frozen. His fingers went completely limp, his hand slowly dropping from your cheek as if every single syllable ripping out of your mouth were a physical blow piercing straight into his heart. His jaw tightened, his lips pressing into a thin, agonizing line of helplessness.

“I never wanted to leave you,” he said, his deep voice violently cracking under the suffocating weight of his emotions. He reached out blindly, his hands hovering near your waist as if he wanted to hold you but didn't have the right anymore.

“I never wanted to hurt you, alright? I swear to God. I just—I just needed time to find a way to understand what was happening to us. You have to know how much you mean to me…”

He choked on his own breath, completely unable to finish the sentence, as though every word in his vocabulary felt entirely too small to carry the massive weight of what he truly felt for you.

“Oh, I mean something to you?!” you shouted directly into his face, the dam completely breaking as you abandoned any attempt to keep your emotions in check. “If I really meant a single fucking thing to you, Joost, you wouldn’t have left me hanging for five fucking weeks without a single word!”

You had to stop, gasping for air as you felt your heart violently fracture all over again right inside your chest. “You just disappeared. Like everything we built was nothing… like I was absolutely nothing to you!”

Joost clenched his fists so tightly his knuckles turned a stark, bloodless white, his blue eyes filled with an agonizing turmoil that never once left yours. His face inched dangerously close to yours, the heat of his skin practically branding you, but you knew with every fiber of your being that you couldn’t let yourself falter now.

“I can't listen to this bullshit anymore! I am done!” you shouted once again, the words tearing raw from your throat.

With a swift, violent motion, you spun around and stormed away from the kitchen toward the front door, absolutely desperate to escape the pointless, suffocating torment of this confrontation.

But before your trembling fingers could even reach the metal handle, Joost moved like lightning. In a single, blurred instant, his towering body intercepted yours, physically blocking the exit as he firmly positioned his back directly against the front door.

“I won’t let you run away,” he said, his voice trembling violently with a terrifying desperation. He spread his arms slightly, anchoring himself against the frame. “You’re not going to make the exact same mistake that I made. I won't let you.”

You stared up at him, breathing heavily as anger and crushing pain began to mix with something else entirely—a sudden flicker of fear, and maybe, just maybe, a deeply buried desire to finally understand what had really happened to him during those five weeks. But your pride screamed at you; you couldn’t possibly give him that satisfaction. Not after what he put you through. Not right now.

“Joost, move the hell out of my way,” you stated, your voice suddenly dropping into a freezing, razor-sharp coldness.

His eyes narrowed instantly, as if those icy words were a physical blow that had landed straight in the center of his chest. He stood there for a paralyzed moment, desperately analyzing your face, and you could feel a fresh wave of frustration building inside your chest all over again.

“Stop,” he said quietly. “I won’t let you leave. Not like this. Not without talking to me. We need to sort this out!”

“Just move!” you shouted, the freezing facade cracking as you found yourself entirely unable to contain the violence of your emotions. You tightly shut your eyes, desperately trying to swallow down the agonizing, rising ache tearing at your lungs.

“Stay. I’m begging you—please, just stay,” his voice broke completely on the last word.

Before your brain could even process the sound of his cracking voice, Joost's hands shot out to grip your waist, and you felt his massive frame suddenly sink straight down to the floor right in front of you.

You stood there entirely paralyzed, far too stunned to form a single coherent thought, let alone speak. You could only stare down at him in breathless shock, feeling the fierce, trembling pressure of his hands tightening securely around your hips to anchor you to the spot.

His breathing was incredibly quick and uneven against your clothes, and his blue eyes looked up at you as if he was pleading for a forgiveness that he couldn’t possibly find within himself.

You felt as though the entire universe had violently ground to a halt around you. You stood completely frozen in the entryway—uncertain, disoriented—with Joost kneeling humbly before you, his face buried deeply against your waist as if he were a man desperately seeking refuge from a storm.

You held your breath, paralyzed by a sudden, irrational fear that if you moved even a fraction of an inch, he might vanish into thin air.

Your hands rose hesitantly, your fingers trembling violently as they reached for his chin, gently but firmly forcing him to tilt his head up to look at you.

“Joost, baby,” you whispered his name, the endearment slipping out as a barely audible breath, your hand shaking against his jaw. “What the hell happened to us?”

Slowly, your knees gave out, and you sank down to the cold floor right beside him. Your heart was pounding so hard it felt deafening, and your entire body was visibly vibrating with the force of your emotions. Without another word, without allowing yourself to think logically, you wrapped your arms tightly around his broad shoulders, pulling his heavy frame flush against yours. You just wanted to feel him. You needed to close the distance, even though a panicked, logical part of your brain was still screaming at you to run away.

The familiar, comforting warmth of his skin immediately seeped through your clothes. The moment your arms locked around him, he pulled you even closer, burying his face into the crook of your neck. Your heart nearly stopped entirely when you felt his large frame begin to shudder violently in your embrace.

Then, tearing through the suffocating silence of the small apartment, came a muffled, broken sob, heavily stifled against your chest.

It was a sound that completely filled your mind, shattering you in a way you hadn’t ever expected. You could feel his entire body physically reacting to the immense pain and guilt he must have been carrying in silence for weeks.

Every single tear fell hot against your skin, despite his desperate, proud attempts to hide them from you. You just held him tightly, listening to the raw, agonizing sound of his crying—a brutal, beautiful reminder of how deeply, profoundly hurt both of you had been by the silence between you.

Joost finally lifted his wet, tear-streaked face from your chest, and something deep inside you shifted violently for the second time that night.

You knew what pain felt like; you knew the exact, hollow anatomy of emptiness. But seeing him like this—seeing his usually vibrant face covered in raw tears, completely stripped of his armor—made you realize that the foundation beneath you was fundamentally changing. Maybe, despite every ounce of agonizing hurt you had both endured over the last weeks, there was still a fragile, beautiful chance to fix this.

“I love you,” you heard his gentle voice whisper.

For a moment, your heart completely stopped beating inside your chest.

“I’m a total idiot for realizing it so late,” he added, his voice cracking.

Those three words hit you like a massive tidal wave, instantly flooding your entire system with a dizzying, overwhelming relief. You could practically feel the suffocating weight of the weeks filled with silence, paranoia, and painful misunderstandings suddenly lift off your shoulders, leaving you lightheaded. You couldn’t stop the fresh tears that immediately began streaming hot down your own cheeks, a physical release of all the trauma you'd been carrying.

“Why didn’t you just say it earlier?” you managed to whisper, your voice barely holding steady as you cupped his face in your trembling hands.

“I was scared,” he confessed, his intense blue eyes locking onto yours with an unblinking, desperate sincerity. “I was so fucking scared that I wasn’t the one you were actually looking for. I felt like I didn’t deserve to be the person who got to make you happy. And then, everything got so complicated in my head—and I pulled away because I was genuinely afraid that the chaos of my feelings might end up hurting you. And you know what the absolute worst part is? That all this time, instead of fighting for us, I just let it control me. And now, seeing you like this, I realize that was the single dumbest mistake of my entire life…”

Instead of trying to search for a meaningful answer through the wreckage of your words, you simply leaned in and pressed your lips directly to his.

Joost froze for a fraction of a second, his entire body going rigid as he felt the delicate, electric connection of your lips meeting his. But the hesitation vanished instantly. Despite all the agonizing words he had spoken just moments before, this was the exact reality you had both been desperately longing for. The kiss was laced with a lingering, fragile unease.

When you finally pulled away, you stayed centimeters apart, staring at each other in a stunned silence, as though both of you were trying to fully comprehend the massive shift that had just occurred. Joost gazed deep into your eyes, his chest rising as he took a long, shaky breath.

“Thank you for doing that,” he whispered against your skin. It wasn’t entirely clear if he meant the kiss itself, or the reality that you were actually letting him back into your life.

You didn’t reply. Instead, you crawled closer onto his lap and rested your forehead gently against his, closing your eyes as if trying to convey every single ounce of love and forgiveness you possessed without the clumsy interference of words.

“How about a shower together?” you asked after a quiet moment, your voice a soft murmur. You could feel the desperate, physical need to wash away the suffocating weight of all the tears and heavy emotions you had both been drowning in.

Joost pulled back slightly to look at you, a flicker of genuine surprise crossing his features. But as he searched your face, a warm, tender light returned to his blue eyes, revealing that the suggestion wasn’t strange to him at all. It was, with absolute certainty, exactly what you both needed.

“Sounds good,” he said. His voice was still trembling slightly, as if a part of his brain still couldn’t quite believe that you were actually here, tangled up together on his floor, after everything.

He stood up first, immediately extending a large hand to help you up from the floor. Joost’s grip was incredibly warm and steady, a grounding force as he gently guided you back to your feet.

When you both stepped into the bathroom, the soft light reflected off the gleaming tiles, instantly enveloping you in an atmosphere of calmness. He quietly closed the door behind you, locking the rest of the world out. The silence that followed was completely different than before; it wasn’t the heavy, tension-filled quiet that had haunted your apartment—it was a gentle, spacious stillness that finally gave you both room to simply breathe, to be together, and to be entirely yourselves.

Without a single word, Joost moved toward the shower, turning the handle and carefully adjusting the water until the temperature was just right, a soft steam beginning to rise and fog the mirror.

Every single motion he made was deliberate and careful, almost reverent, as if he were trying to gauge exactly what you were feeling without rushing you through a single second of it.

At last, he turned back to face you, a small, incredibly gentle smile playing on his lips.

“Do you want me to help you?” he asked softly. His tone was patient, entirely unpressuring—he clearly understood that you needed to move at your own pace, and he was willing to wait forever.

“Yes, please,” you replied quietly, your voice barely above a whisper. You could practically feel your racing heart finally settling back into its normal, steady rhythm just by looking at him.

It was a beautiful, rare moment where you could finally let go. You didn’t have to think about the club, the fights, or the agonizing weeks of silence that had happened before. You only had to focus on the absolute now—him, you, and the truth of what you held in this exact present moment.

Joost stepped closer, his movements agonizingly tender as his warm hands reached for the hem of your shirt, slowly lifting it up and over your head, leaving your skin tingling in the humid air. Finally, his gaze never leaving yours, his large hands traveled down to the button of your jeans. As his knuckles brushed against your bare skin, you felt your breath catch sharply in your throat, your heart hammering with a completely different kind of anticipation.

“Hey, it’s just me,” his voice carried a deep, soothing calm, grounding your frantic thoughts in a way that instantly reminded you that, despite everything, you could trust him with your whole soul.

A moment later, you stood before him in nothing but your underwear, which soon tumbled down to join the rest of your clothes on the cold floor. Joost’s sharp blue eyes roamed slowly over your form, filled with a burning tenderness that made your breath catch sharply in your throat.

“Please don’t make me stand here naked all by myself,” you whispered, a small, playful smile finally breaking through your exhaustion.

Joost chuckled softly, the warm sound vibrating in his chest before he began to shed his own clothes. You watched him with unblinking curiosity, your gaze tracing the familiar lines of his body.

When he noticed your eyes tracking him, he paused momentarily; a faint, endearing hint of bashfulness flashed across his face before he offered you a soft smile. His pale skin was marked with tattoos, each one telling a silent story, each one a piece of the man he was.

You absolutely loved that about him—the way his tattoos painted a permanent picture of someone who was completely and unapologetically himself.

Without another word, he stepped closer, his large, warm hands effortlessly finding their usual place on your hips. His touch was incredibly steady. The heavy sound of the water streaming from the shower filled the small room, but it felt entirely distant now—merely a background track to the absolute reality of this moment.

Every touch, every movement between you was painfully careful, infused with a deep intimacy, as though the entire universe outside that bathroom door had melted away into nothingness.

You stood face to face, completely vulnerable, with no physical or emotional barriers left between you. As you stepped into the enclosure together, the warm water immediately washed over your bodies.

Joost positioned his larger frame directly behind you, and you felt his hands gently glide across the curve of your shoulders, pulling your back flush against his chest as if he wanted to physically shield you from the rest of the world. You squeezed your eyes shut, letting the soothing heat of the water and the solid weight of his touch calm your remaining nerves.

All the suffocating weight you had been carrying alone for the past weeks slowly began to dissolve. You felt his wet hands move across your skin, gently massaging the tension from your muscles, each intentional movement lifting away the bitter remnants of fear and pain.

“You don’t have to say a single thing,” he whispered into your hair, pulling you even tighter against him so you could feel his hot breath against the sensitive skin of your neck. “I’m right here. I’m really here.”

In that exact moment, you needed absolutely nothing else on earth. Just the rush of the warm water, the peaceful silence you shared, and the undeniable feeling that, despite all the wreckage, you had both successfully found your way back home to each other.

“Actually, I just wanna say one thing,” you started, tilting your head back to rest comfortably against his solid chest. “I love you. In a way that's completely hard to put into words.”

Pushing your way through the crushing crowd, you dreamed of nothing more than getting outside as quickly as possible. Chaos surrounded you from all sides. The intense, suffocating smell of cheap sweat and stale alcohol mingled with the pounding bass of the music, a heavy vibration that seemed to seep straight into your very bones. Flashing strobe lights cast surreal, distorted shadows on the sweaty faces around you, making the entire room feel like a fever dream.

Every single step was a physical challenge. Every accidental brush against another warm, damp body only heightened your desperate urge to escape.

Your gaze darted wildly through the dark until you finally spotted it: the heavy metal door. Its scratched surface gleamed under the club's neon lights. You locked your eyes on it, completely tuning out the noise and the people around you. With all the strength you had left, you threw your weight against it, pushing it open as if that single motion held the absolute promise of freedom.

Outside, everything felt completely different. The freezing night wind immediately wrapped around your overheated skin, soothing its burning, flushed sensation. The air smelled of fresh dampness and the concrete city—a sharp contrast to the suffocating room inside. Each deep breath you took filled your lungs, giving you a sudden sense of renewed energy.

You closed your eyes for a brief moment, leaning your back heavily against the rough concrete wall of the alleyway. Its cool surface seeped right through the thin fabric of your clothes, chilling your spine in the best way possible.

The wind played with your messy hair, lifting it gently from your neck. You felt as though time had suddenly slowed down to a crawl. The chaos that had surrounded you just moments ago now seemed like a distant, unreal memory. The pounding bass still echoed faintly in your ears, but here, it was muffled, reduced to a dull thud behind the heavy metal door. At last, you felt the tight tension leave your muscles, replaced by a deep calmness that filled every corner of your body.

You reached into your bag, feeling an abrupt, desperate need to deliver some nicotine to your brain. Your fingers plunged into its depths, blindly brushing against your keys, your phone, and loose coins—everything except what you were actually searching for.

“Shit,” you muttered under your breath, digging deeper into the abyss of your small, red bag. Its contents suddenly seemed infinite, as if all the frustration built up in your body had found an outlet in this chaotic attempt to locate a single cigarette.

Finally, your fingertips brushed against the cool, metallic edge of your lighter. A second later, you hooked your fingers around the familiar, slightly crushed cardboard pack of cigarettes. A wave of pure relief washed over you as you pulled them out into the dim light.

You pulled a fresh cigarette from the pack and slipped it between your lips, the sharp red of your lipstick instantly smudging a bright mark onto the white filter. Your fingers trembled slightly from the leftover adrenaline as you brought the lighter close to your face, focusing all your attention on the textured spark wheel.

You flicked it hard, but instead of a warm, yellow flame, you only heard the dry, hollow click of it failing.

“Are you kidding me?” You whispered desperately, your thumb frantically striking the wheel over and over, trying to force a tiny spark. It was useless, but you kept going as if your sheer determination could somehow bring the dead lighter back to life. “Really? Right now?”

The freezing alley wind toyed with the unlit cigarette hanging from your mouth. Shivering, you stared down at the useless lighter in your hand, genuinely debating whether you should force yourself back into that suffocating club crowd for a match or just give up entirely.

You lifted your gaze from the dead thing in your hand, praying that someone out here might rescue you from this ridiculous situation. Turning your head to the right, you caught the faint sound of voices and low laughter drifting from the darker end of the alleyway.

Without overthinking it, you quickly adjusted the coat on your shoulders, pulling it tight to mask how badly your hands were shaking, and headed toward them. You tried your best to look far more composed than you actually felt.

“Uhm—hey... Sorry to bother you,” you said, clearing your throat uncertainly as you approached.

Three pairs of eyes immediately turned toward you, cutting through the shadows. But it was one pair in particular that instantly caught your attention. His eyes, catching the pale glow of the overhead streetlight, held something deeply hypnotic—a sudden, piercing focus that completely threw you off balance for a split second.

“I just wanted to ask—if you might have a lighter I could borrow?” You asked, a slightly tipsy, soft smile tugging at your lips as you tried your best to mask your shyness.

You watched his face closely and noticed the corner of his lips lift into a nearly imperceptible grin before he slowly reached into his jacket pocket.

“Anything for a beautiful lady,” the blond man said, his voice smooth and low. He held out his hand, offering a small, heavy metal lighter that gleamed brightly under the overhead lamplight.

You took it, your fingers lightly brushing against his for a fraction of a second. You twirled the lighter in your fingers, examining its smooth, cool surface as if you wanted to memorize this small, saving gesture. You looked back up at him and flashed him the widest, most genuine smile you could manage at that moment.

“Thank you,” you said, your voice carrying a deep, sincere gratitude.

He returned your smile, his hypnotic eyes sparkling with genuine amusement.

“No problem. If I can help a lady in a crisis, why wouldn't I?” he joked lightly. The rest of his friends chuckled, the tension in the alley completely melting away into the cool night air.

You flicked the wheel and pressed the warm flame to your cigarette, finally letting the fire catch the end of the filter. You inhaled deeply, closing your eyes as the rush of nicotine spread through your body, finally soothing your nerves. As you exhaled a thick cloud of smoke into the night air, you glanced at the blond man once more over the tip of your cigarette.

“You’re saving my life,” you said half-jokingly, fully aware of how dramatic it sounded to a stranger.

But looking back, it wasn't dramatic at all. Because that was the exact moment you met Joost.

Something in the crisp autumn air shifted that evening, and from that exact moment on, your entire world was different. You weren’t sure if it was his warm, easy smile or the effortless, stupid jokes he threw around to make his friends laugh, but something about him made you feel more genuinely excited about life than you ever had before. Whatever beautiful, chaotic thing began that night—standing on the cold concrete outside a loud club—was bound to develop into the most wonderful, intense friendship you would ever experience.

It didn’t take long for you to get to know his friends, and before you knew it, each one of them loved you just as much as you loved them. You felt like you had suddenly fallen backward into a big, loud, loving family—one you never even realized you were missing, though you would never admit it out loud.

They were simply there whenever you needed support, whether that meant tearing through a wild night full of reckless laughter and too much alcohol, or sitting on the floor during quiet conversations at three in the morning when the world outside felt heavier than usual.

Still, despite how close you got to the group, it was always Joost.

He was the very first thought that crossed your mind the second you opened your eyes every morning, and the final face that lingered in your thoughts as you drifted off to sleep. On the surface, your friendship was perfectly normal.

The conversations flowed effortlessly between you two, shifting seamlessly from casual, stupid jokes to deep, heavy discussions that lasted for hours on end. He was the only person who knew exactly how to make you forget everything that weighed you down, and somehow, he knew how to listen even when your words failed you completely.

There was nothing objectively extraordinary about the two of you, yet you secretly felt that every tiny, unspoken gesture meant far more than you were ever willing to admit.

It was in the casual way his hand would reach out to brush a stray lock of hair behind your ear after you made a joke too stupid not to laugh at. It was in how he could instantly read the subtle exhaustion in your voice before you even had a chance to mention it.

In his presence, the chaotic noise of the world simply faded away, becoming quiet and manageable. Sometimes, it felt like you could pour your entire soul out and tell him absolutely everything. Other times, a heavy silence between you was more than enough, because you understood each other perfectly without a single word being spoken.

At some point without you even noticing, Joost became the ultimate constant in your life—a completely irreplaceable part of your everyday routine.

That’s exactly why, when you saw him that evening talking to some random girl at the far end of the bar, something deep inside your chest completely froze. His smile—the exact same warm, effortless smile you knew so well—was directed entirely at her.

You felt a sudden, suffocating tightness lock up your stomach. It was a miserable knot of something between irritation and hollow sadness; a dark feeling you weren’t ready to name. Your heart started to hammer violently against your ribs, and every single second you spent watching his eyes light up for her felt like a form of unnecessary cruelty.

“Oh, fuck it,” you muttered under your breath, turning sharply on your heel to walk away. But it was already too late; the image of the two of them standing together had already burned itself into your brain, leaving a dull, persistent ache behind.

For a desperate moment, you tried your hardest to rationalize the situation. After all, nothing romantic had ever happened between the two of you, right? It was just friendship. Only friendship. That was exactly how it was meant to be, how it should be.

But the suffocating tightness in your stomach and the sharp, hot sting you felt each time his blue eyes glanced toward someone else told a completely different story. Your body knew the truth, even if your mind was trying to deny it.

You knew, with a terrifying certainty, that you were completely screwed. It wasn’t even that you consciously wanted things to change between you. It was simply the unwanted, incredibly painful realization that Joost had never been just a friend to you. Not for a single second.

You forced your boots to move, returning to the loud circle of your mutual friends while trying desperately to suppress the chaotic emotions clouding your mind. You felt cold, certain that your face was as pale as a sheet. Blindly pushing forward without looking ahead, you walked straight into Martijn.

He stumbled back slightly, his eyes instantly dipping into a look of genuine concern. He raised an eyebrow, his lips tilting into a gentle, reassuring smile as his hands briefly stabilized you by your shoulders.

“Woah, where are you rushing off to? Is everything okay?” He asked as his gaze was searching for your face. “You look like you've seen a ghost,” he joked softly, trying to ease the heavy tension that was suddenly hanging in the air between you.

“I'm fine,” you replied too quickly, your voice cracking slightly as you tried to sound convincing. Even to your own ears, the lie sounded weak and pathetic. “I’m just feeling a little off tonight. Tired, you know?”

His eyes narrowed slightly, tracking the movement of your face as if he was trying to read the real story hidden beneath your lie. But before he could open his mouth to question you, you already looked away, your body practically vibrating with the urge to leave.

Everything inside you was screaming for a violent escape—from the suffocating heat of this place, from the oblivious laughter of these people, and most of all, from the terrifying thought that had permanently taken root in your mind tonight.

You blindly grabbed your heavy coat from the back of a chair. Throwing a quick, breathless, “Bye, everyone!” over your shoulder, you bolted for the exit before anyone could stop you.

As you pushed past the heavy doors into the freezing night air, a wave of gratitude washed over you. Deep down, you were incredibly thankful that Joost hadn’t been standing with the group just then. If he had been looking at you, you wouldn’t have been able to look him in the eye—not tonight, not when the truth was still burning so hot in your chest.

His smile, which had always been the one thing guaranteed to make you feel good, now felt like a heavy weight you couldn't bear to look at. Besides, what were you even supposed to say to him? “You know, Joost, I think I'm starting to feel something for you, but I don’t know what to do about it?” It would be completely ridiculous. It would ruin everything.

Instead, you’d rather just completely disappear. You needed to give yourself a moment to breathe, to calm down, and to actually process what had just happened to your heart. For now, you deliberately forced yourself not to think about the terrifying reality of what awaited you the next time you had to see him.

Lost in the suffocating loop of your own mind, you didn’t even notice the cold walk home until you suddenly found yourself standing at the door to your apartment. You turned the key with trembling, clumsy hands, eager to hide inside as quickly as possible.

The moment you shut the heavy door behind you, locking the dark hallway out, the tight tension in your muscles eased slightly. But the toxic unease still clung to your skin like film. You needed nothing more right now than a hot shower and dreamless sleep. You carelessly tossed your coat onto a chair, kicked off your shoes, and prayed for nothing but a brief, total escape from your own thoughts.

As quickly as your shaking hands allowed, you shed your clothes, stepped into the bathroom, and stood directly under the heavy stream of scalding hot water. You leaned your forehead against the wet tiles, feeling the physical tension finally start to bleed out of your muscles. Yet, despite the heat, you couldn't wash away the noise in your head. Deep in your mind, you could still hear his loud, easy laughter echoing through the bar; you could still see the way that girl had looked at him. You felt completely paralyzed, trapped in a suffocating circle of your own creation.

You squeezed your eyes shut, trying to drown out the mental images with the roar of the shower, but a strange, persistent instinct deep inside whispered that the night wasn’t actually over yet. The heavy feeling of unease was practically crushing you from the inside out.

When you finally stepped out of the steam, your skin was flushed pink, but your body craved sleep more than it ever had before. Dressed in the first oversized t-shirt and worn-out sweatpants you could grab, you caught a glimpse of yourself in the mirror—you looked more like a shadow of yourself than someone safely ready for bed.

Hurriedly, you padded into your dark bedroom and shut the door tight, your mind begging to just black out and forget about everything, even if only for a few hours.

The second you lay down on the mattress, you closed your eyes, immediately feeling the heavy, crushing weight of your eyelids. It finally seemed like sleep was going to be your merciful escape.

Then, cutting violently through the quiet stillness of your apartment, the loud, aggressive ring of the doorbell echoed through the walls.

You froze, your breath hitching in your throat as if the sudden noise had physically pulled you out of your exhausted stupor. In an instant, your heart began to race wildly against your ribs. A dark, unsettling thought crossed your mind—no one ever unexpectedly showed up at your door at this hour of the night.

You slowly forced your heavy legs to swing out of bed, feeling every single muscle in your body begging you to just lie back down and ignore it. But the persistent dread pooling in your stomach told you otherwise. You knew you had to check who it was.

Before you could even step foot into the dark hallway, the sound cut through the apartment again—louder this time, far more insistent. Only one single person came to mind who would dare to show up at your door at this hour of the night.

You cautiously unlocked the door and cracked it open. Before you could even process his presence or formulate a word, the tall blond with the mustache barged right past you, invading your apartment like a whirlwind.

Your heart leaped into your throat. You quickly slammed the front door shut behind him to lock out the noise of the hallway, then turned slowly toward the living room where he had stopped. He stood there in the center of the space, entirely silent. He looked down at you, his sharp jawline tight and his face completely tense. He was angry. Very angry.

“It's really nice to see you too,” you blurted out suddenly, your voice dripping with defensive sarcasm because you were already so completely fed up with the strange, suffocating tension hanging in the air. This was absolutely not how you had envisioned spending the rest of your night.

“What the fuck?! What the hell is going on with you?!” Joost shouted after a long, agonizing beat of silence. His voice was raw, completely full of burning frustration, but as you looked at him, you realized his eyes held something much deeper than just anger. They held fear. Pure, raw fear. “You walk out of the club without a single word to anyone and you don't answer your fucking phone! I thought something crazy had happened to you, Goddamn it!”

His words hit you square in the chest like a heavy brick. Seeing that volatile mix of fury and genuine terror on his face made you feel instantly guilty of a crime you didn't even fully understand yet.

You paused, desperately trying to swallow the lump in your throat and calm your racing pulse, but you couldn't find a single logical way to explain why you had vanished so suddenly. You couldn't tell him the truth. And to make matters worse, you realized with a sick feeling that you had completely forgotten to plug in your dead phone the second you got home.

“Fuck, I'm sorry, okay?” You muttered softly. It didn't sound like a proper apology, but rather the sound of someone completely overwhelmed, just trying to keep from breaking down. “I just—I needed to get out of there. I had to leave.”

You couldn't tell him the real reason. You couldn't just drop the weight of your feelings onto him right now, because the terrifying fear that it would ruin your entire dynamic was suffocating. You couldn't risk losing him.

“You needed to get out?” He asked, his tone sharp and deeply annoyed as he stepped closer. “From what, exactly? What was so awful inside that club that you had to vanish without a single word to anyone?”

His deep voice echoed off the quiet walls of your apartment, and you felt the frantic tension inside your chest tighten. Every one of Joost's words felt like a blade hitting straight at your heart.

You knew he was completely right; you knew you had run away like a coward. But how could you possibly find the right words to explain why? How could you tell him that seeing him smile at that random girl made you want to claw your way out of your own skin and disappear forever?

“Joost, I—” you started, but your voice cracked, betraying you instantly. You took a sharp, deep breath, trying to force your racing heart to calm down. “I just—I suddenly felt weird. Sicker than usual. I just needed air.”

His gaze narrowed, becoming even more intensely focused on you. There was a raw, piercing look in his eyes that made you want to simultaneously hide from him and scream out every single truth that had been crushing your heart all night.

“Weird? Really? Do you honestly think I'm going to believe you bolted across the city just because you needed a little air?” He sounded even more pissed off now, but his voice shook slightly with leftover adrenaline. “I’ve known you long enough to know exactly when something is destroying you. So cut the bullshit, alright? Just tell me what happened.”

You genuinely didn’t know how to respond. The terrifying truth was vibrating right on the tip of your tongue, completely ready to spill out into the quiet room, but you desperately slammed your jaws shut to hold it back at the last possible second.

“Joost, just drop it. It doesn't matter,” you replied, looking everywhere but at his face as you tried to move past him. “As you can see, I'm alive. I'm completely fine, and I just want to go to bed already.”

He didn't budge an inch. Instead, he looked down at you with raised eyebrows, his posture completely rigid. He wasn’t buying a single syllable. In his eyes, that mixture of burning frustration and deep, aching concern was still swirling, making you feel even more trapped in your own living room than you had inside the crowded club.

“Don’t try to feed me such bullshit ever again,” he said, his voice dropping into a dangerous, low register that didn't lose a single ounce of its terrifying intensity. He stepped directly into your personal space, forcing you to look at him. “I know you better than anyone, you know that. I’m not an idiot. Something is wrong, and you’re pushing me away right now as if that’s going to fix anything.”

You opened your mouth to fire back, but the words completely died in your throat. Joost stood directly in front of you, his towering frame locked in a posture of pure determination. He made you feel utterly trapped, like an animal backed into a dark corner with nowhere left to run.

“You know me well enough to know that I’m not letting this go,” he added, taking another slow, deliberate step toward you. “So either you tell me what the hell is going on right now, or I’ll stand in this exact spot all night.”

“Great. Well, then I wish you a wonderful night,” you threw back bitterly, a desperate, final attempt to end this conversation before it completely spiraled out of control. You tried to duck your shoulder and brush past him toward the safety of the bedroom, but Joost was faster.

His hand shot out and gripped your arm, his fingers firm but careful as he spun you back around to face him. His gaze drilled straight into yours—intense, unblinking, and swirling with a chaotic mix of emotions that felt far too complicated for you to decipher.

“We are not done,” he said, his voice dropping to a quiet, dangerous whisper that vibrated firmly in the small room. “You don’t get to just brush me off like that. Not after you left me in that club without a single word.”

He was standing so incredibly close now that you could feel the warmth radiating off his chest. The sheer proximity broke something inside you, causing all the toxic jealousy and panic you'd been desperately suppressing all evening to violently rise to the surface with double the force.

“Joost—” you began, your voice trembling so hard it was barely a breath. But he quickly cut you off.

“I just want to know,” he interrupted, his hand shifting from your arm up to your shoulder, his grip tightening slightly as if he were terrified you might dissolve into thin air. His voice was completely stripped of anger now, replaced instead by a desperation that gripped your chest a million times harder than his hand ever could. “Why did you run away? Please, just tell me what happened in there.”

Joost stared down at you, his desperate plea echoing in your mind like a mantra, methodically breaking down every single defensive wall you had so carefully constructed over the past few months. Feeling completely cornered—realizing that you had absolutely nowhere left to run—you finally gathered the raw courage to look him dead in the eye.

“You want to know why?” You asked, your voice cracking as it rose to a near-scream, tearing through the quiet apartment. “What the hell would you do if I told you I couldn’t stay there because—because seeing you with her, laughing at that damn bar, made me want to fucking vanish?”

In an instant, Joost’s entire face froze. His fingers went slack, and his hand slowly, heavily lowered from your shoulder as if every single word coming out of your mouth had pierced him far deeper than he could have ever predicted. The room plunged into a suffocating silence, but inside your own head, the noise was deafening.

“What—what do you mean by that?” He whispered finally. His voice was a hollow shadow of the fury he had walked in with, completely replaced now by something incredibly delicate and fragile.

You took a ragged, trembling breath, feeling the terrifying weight of the realization that there was absolutely no turning back now. You had leaped off the cliff.

“That seeing you—” you started, but the words broke in your throat, a quiet sob threatening to spill over. “Seeing you with someone else makes me feel like someone is violently ripping my heart right out of my chest. Because, damn it, Joost, I think about you every single day. Every single night. And what I saw tonight just made me realize, with terrifying clarity, that I am completely alone in all of this!”

The air between you thickened to the point where you felt like you were genuinely suffocating. Joost stood completely still, his eyes suddenly filling with an emotion so heavy and conflicted that it made you regret your words for a terrifying fraction of a second. Yet, at the same time, you knew you had to say it. Even if it meant the entire world was about to collapse around you.

Joost looked down at you with an expression so intense that, for a single, beautiful moment, your heart leaped with the foolish hope that your confession might actually change everything.

Then, his lips twitched. A sickening wave of deep regret and painful uncertainty washed into his blue eyes, effectively crushing that fragile hope into dust.

“Oh my God, I—” he started, his voice incredibly soft, almost breaking under the weight of the room. “I—I don't even know what to say.”

He took a slow step backward, as if your proximity had suddenly become too hot to handle, and his hand reached up to rub the back of his neck in a tense, nervous gesture.

“You’re one of the most important people in my entire life,” he continued, and each word felt like a deliberate, brutal sting against your skin. “But listen… I just—I don’t see us that way.”

Those words pierced straight through you like a physical knife. You could practically feel your heart contract and wither with pain, and the walls of your apartment seemed to blur around you as your vision swam.

“I don’t want to lose you,” he added frantically, the words rushing out of him as if he were terrified that a single glance from you meant the immediate end of your relationship. “But what you feel… I don't think I can give you that.”

You didn’t know what to say. Every single word felt utterly inadequate, and the sudden, freezing silence stretching between you was heavier than anything you had ever experienced in your life.

“I am so sorry...” Joost said finally. His voice was trembling, completely stripped of its usual warmth, and he couldn’t even bring himself to look you in the eye. “I'm so, so sorry.”

Before you could find your breath to speak, before you could react or beg him to stay or tell him it was okay, Joost turned around. He walked out of your space, closing the front door firmly behind him.

The click of the lock signaling his departure felt like a gunshot. You were left entirely alone in the center of your apartment, surrounded by a heavy, toxic silence that sounded far louder than any noise in the world.

The sky was painfully beautiful that morning, streaked with pale pinks and amber light that felt almost mocking. You were sitting on the cold, cracked steps of the grey tenement house, watching the city slowly wake up. The damp chill of the stone seeped right through your clothes, sending a sharp shiver up your spine. It was cold. Very cold. But the freezing air was the only thing grounding you right now.

How much longer would this last?

How much longer would you feel so hopelessly lost?

A cigarette smoldered between your lips, a thin ribbon of grey smoke curling up into the air and mingling with your shaky breath. You had lit it with the silver lighter he gave you. Pathetic, really. You couldn't even let go of a cheap piece of metal, even though it had been three agonizing weeks since the two of you had completely fallen apart.

At first, it didn’t really sink in. After a long argument full of shouting and throwing whatever you could get your hands on, the apartment went completely dead quiet. You just stood there in the middle of the mess like a ghost for another hour, staring at the front door.

It felt almost unreal that the man you had been planning your entire future with just a few days ago was suddenly gone behind it. You stayed frozen on the spot, waiting and hoping he would come back. After all, he always came back, right? But the minutes kept passing, and the door didn't open.

Then the despair finally hit you. Tears flowed down your face so thickly that you felt like you were drowning in them, unable to catch your breath. You ended up on the floor, curled into a tight ball right there amidst all the mess from the before. The hardwood was cold against your cheek, and that’s when the truth finally settled in; it was really over.

He didn’t come back. Not that night, not the next day, or the day after that.

Soon, the hours and days just merged into one long, gray blur. Your phone kept buzzing against the floorboards. Your friends sent more and more messages, and your inbox was flooded with missed calls, but you just stared at the glowing screen. You didn’t have the strength to lift your hand, let alone answer them. That’s how the entire first week slipped away.

It hurt so much, until finally, the pain burned itself out and left nothing but emptiness. You just wanted to escape from the intrusive thoughts that kept rewinding in your head. You wanted to forget the exact shade of his eyes and the way he smiled.

So when an old friend texted you a proposal to go to a party, you didn't think twice. Anything was better than sitting alone in that quiet apartment. Alcohol and loud music sounded like the perfect solace for your shattered psyche.

You traded the silence for flashing lights and sticky club floors. The burning heat of cheap drinks drowned out the ache in your chest. One evening blurred into another, and that into another, the days measured only by hangovers and bass lines. That’s how the next two weeks passed.

You still thought about him though. You thought about him every single night on your way to the club, and every morning waking up in the unfamiliar bed of a new man. It didn’t matter who was next to you; the second you closed your eyes, he was the only one there.

Joost.

His image was etched so deeply into your subconscious that you couldn't get rid of it, no matter how much you drank. You knew exactly how disappointed he would be if he could see you right now, tangled in sheets that smelled like a stranger. You could practically picture the damn pity in his eyes, and that thought hurt worse than him leaving.

You were suddenly torn from your thoughts by a cold drop that dripped right onto your nose. It was starting to rain. You stubbed out the rest of your cigarette on the damp cobblestones of the old stairs, watching the last spark die.

You rubbed your tired face with both hands, pressing hard against your eyelids. You didn't care that all your mascara was probably smeared under your eyes now, making you look as wrecked as you felt. You were just too exhausted to care about your appearance.

As you swallowed hard, you could still taste the cheap, sour wine you had been drinking just a few hours ago at the club. The rain started coming down faster, but you just sat there, staring at your shoes, completely unable to bring yourself to stand up.

Feeling the biting cold, you pulled your oversized black coat tighter around your body and slowly forced yourself up from the stone stairs. Your muscles ached from sitting still for so long. Deep down, you thanked God that this time you had chosen comfortable sneakers instead of high heels. Otherwise, the long walk home would have been a real way of the cross.

You dug your phone out of your bag and squinted hard at the bright screen, the glare stinging your tired eyes. 4:45 AM. The sky was turning lighter, but the streets were still completely dead.

“A new, beautiful day, huh?” You muttered ironically under your breath, your voice sounding raspy in the quiet morning air.

You raised your eyes to look around the unfamiliar area, trying to get your bearings. You didn't quite remember how you had ended up in this part of town, or who the guy even was—the one who had turned out to be nice enough to invite you over last night. It didn't really matter though; he was just another blurred face now.

Without thinking twice, you started moving forward. You walked past identical brick facades and quiet canals, hoping that with every corner you turned, your brain would finally recognize one of the streets of Amsterdam. But right now, everything just looked the same.

You walked briskly, pulling the collar of your coat up over your head because the drizzle had turned into a heavy downpour. It was raining so hard now that the streetlights blurred into watery smears of light, making it even harder to see where you were going.

You reached into your pocket, but your fingers only met cardboard; the cigarettes had long since gotten soaked. You cursed under your breath. Your head was beginning to throb, and you could still feel the heavy, sluggish weight of the alcohol running through your veins, slowing down your every step.

After fifteen minutes of walking blindly through the downpour, you finally stopped. You wiped the water from your eyes and forced yourself to look around, trying to figure out where your foggy mind had led you.

And that's when the breath caught in your throat.

You blinked against the rain, looking up at the familiar brick building towering right in front of you. Of all the places in Amsterdam, your feet had brought you here—the building where Joost's apartment was located.

Tears immediately welled up in your eyes, hot against the freezing rain on your face. Of course. Of all the possible paths in this massive city, your stupid subconscious had led you right back to his doorstep.

Deep down, a bitter laugh bubbled up in your throat. You were practically mocking yourself for being so incredibly naive and predictable. You had spent three weeks drinking, partying, and running away, only to end up exactly where you started—standing in the rain, staring at his building like a cliché.

Then, the stupidest thought possible suddenly flashed through your mind. You knew that what you were about to do was completely idiotic. You were no longer together; it was over, and you both knew it.

But your legs were faster than your common sense. Before you could talk yourself out of it, you were moving. You slipped into the building, your wet shoes squeaking loudly against the floor, and in a matter of seconds, you found yourself standing on the quiet staircase right outside the door of his apartment.

Standing in front of that thin wooden door, you realized you were only centimeters away from him. Your hand moved on instinct, your knuckles rapping against the wood before you could stop yourself.

The sound echoed in the quiet hallway, and the moment it left your hands, a wave of panic hit you. You already knew you had made a massive mistake. Suddenly, you just wanted to turn around and run, to sprint down the stairs and disappear forever.

But you were frozen. As you stood there lost in your own panic, the lock clicked. Before you could even take a step back, the door in front of you swung open.

And then, you saw him for the first time in weeks. He stood right there in front of you, looking like a total wreck of a man. His beautiful blue eyes, once so bright and full of light, were dull and bland now. His blond hair was messy and overgrown, far too long for your taste. Huge, dark bags shadowed the skin under his eyes, impossible to hide, proving he hadn't slept in days.

Looking at him, you felt a jolt in your chest—it was like looking at your own reflection in a mirror.

The sight of him destroyed whatever armor you had left. Tears burned behind your eyes again, threatening to spill over. Your lower lip began to shake violently, but you bit down on it, desperately trying to mask the tremor. You didn't want to show him just how completely this was destroying you.

You finally broke and forced yourself to look directly into his eyes. And he knew. The second his gaze met yours, he knew absolutely everything. His expression was exactly as you had imagined it on those steps—empty and heavy with a quiet regret.

You froze, the breath completely leaving your lungs. For weeks, your head had been overflowing with a million angry thoughts, explanations, and words you wanted to scream at him. But now, staring at him in the dim hallway light, your mind suddenly went completely blank. Every single word vanished.

You just stood there, dripping wet, your hands hanging uselessly at your sides. You didn’t know what to do. You didn't even know how to breathe.

Joost left the door wide open without saying a single word, turning on his heel and walking back inside. You stood there for a second, feeling incredibly awkward, but your feet moved on instinct and you followed him.

The apartment was deadly quiet. You slipped off your wet sneakers in the hallway and carefully hung your heavy coat on the hanger, placing it exactly where you always used to leave it.

As you stepped further into the apartment, the air hit you. You immediately breathed in that characteristic, familiar smell. It was the exact scent that reminded you of the absolute best moments of your life, and breathing it in now felt like a punch to the chest.

You headed slowly toward the couch, where Joost was sitting with his head buried in his hands. You felt so out of place, completely unsure of what to do with your own body. You approached him quietly until you were standing right in front of him.

Without thinking, your hand reached out. Your fingers automatically started to smooth his messy hair, that familiar gesture from a life that didn't belong to you anymore. At your touch, Joost slowly raised his head, his tired eyes looking straight into yours. He still didn’t say a single word.

You tried to read his expression, but you couldn't figure him out. It used to be so easy for you. You used to know his every thought—but right now, it seemed impossible.

Suddenly, he stood up. The abrupt movement startled you, and you involuntarily took a sharp step back. Now, he was towering over you, looking down into your face. Under the crushing weight of his silent gaze, you felt like the smallest, most vulnerable person in the world.

“Why are you here?” His low voice cracked slightly, filled with a heavy uncertainty that cut right through you.

Hearing him say those few words was the final straw; you couldn't hold it together anymore. A fresh stream of salty tears burst from your eyes, running down your face.

Seeing you break down, Joost didn't hesitate. He instinctively stepped closer, closing the distance between you, and reached up to cradle your face. His rough thumbs gently wiped the tears from your wet cheeks. He stared down at you, his own eyes brimming with water, looking like he was about to cry himself.

“I'm sorry—I'm so sorry, Joost...” The broken words mixed with your quiet, ragged sobs as you choked them out.

The second the apology left your lips, he stepped in. Joost embraced you with his whole body, wrapping his arms tightly around your shoulders and pulling you flush against him. You buried your face in his chest, feeling like you were completely melting into his warmth.

But as his arms locked around you, the dam broke. All the suppressed pain of the last three weeks came rushing back with double the force, hitting you so hard it physically ached.

“I'm with you, you hear me? It’s okay,” Joost whispered into your hair, his hands pressing firmly against your back. His voice was trembling, but his grip on you didn't loosen for a second.

Through the window, the pale rays of the morning sun finally began to break through, casting long shadows over a cloudy Amsterdam. The storm was slowing down. You slowly lifted your heavy head from his chest to look at him.

His face took on an undefined expression that you couldn't quite read. Was it despair? Probably not. It was more like some strange, deep melancholy.

Joost didn't say anything as he looked back down at you. He just grabbed your face in his warm hands again, his thumbs gently rubbing over your wet skin, tracing the path of your tears as if he were trying to memorize every detail of your face all over again.

“There are so many things I want to tell you now,” he began, his voice dropping to a rough whisper. “I missed you so fucking much.”

“I can't do it without you,” you replied, your voice barely audible over the quiet hum of the apartment.

You closed your eyes, utterly exhausted from the whiplash of emotions, unable to look at him for even a second longer. Behind your closed eyelids, a suffocating wave of guilt washed over you. You felt like the worst asshole on the planet. Hearing his raw confession made your stomach twist; you didn't deserve his warmth, and you certainly didn't deserve his love. Not after what you had done.

“Look at me,” he said after a quiet moment, his hands tightening slightly on your cheeks. “I love you, do you understand that? For the past weeks, I haven't been able to live without thinking about you. I love you, okay?”

He brought his lips closer to yours, and suddenly you felt that deeply familiar taste. This kiss was different than any other you had ever shared. It was heavy, filled with all the suffocating emotions of the past three weeks—the anger, the desperate longing, and the relief.

In that exact second, you felt like you were finally home again. Standing right there in the middle of his living room, kissing the love of your life, the numbness completely cracked. It felt like you were being revived, like your heart was finally beating for the first time since you left.

“Please, let’s try again, please...” you whispered against his mouth, your breath hitching.

Joost didn't pull away. Instead, he rested his forehead heavily against yours, closing his eyes.

“I was such an idiot to leave that night,” he murmured, his voice thick with emotion. “Please, forgive me. That was my biggest fucking mistake.”

“I forgave you a long time ago,” you said, a soft smile breaking across your face. It was the first real, genuine smile you had felt in weeks.

When Joost pulled back just enough to look at you, you saw it—that damn spark was finally back in his blue eyes, bright and alive. A genuine warmth spread through your chest, replacing the cold chill of the morning.

He leaned in to press one more soft, lingering kiss to your lips, before letting out a quiet huff of amusement against your skin.

“You taste like cigarettes,” he murmured, a faint, familiar smirk finally touching the corners of his mouth.

You rolled your eyes, a slightly stupid, relieved smile tugging at your lips. “Can we go smoke a real one now, please?” you asked.

Joost let out a soft, breathless laugh, his hands sliding down from your face to wrap tightly around yours. “I would go for a smoke with you even if I had to rise from the dead.”