“...and, somehow, through all that...darkness caving in around him, he managed to think of you...”

“I never thought about you, not if I could help it. That time in my life...it was just too painful. So I blocked it out as best I could for years.” He pauses to take a deep breath. “But sometimes...sometimes you managed to sneak your way through. And that night you did, just when I thought it was all over for me. I had that stupid fucking Tom Petty song stuck in my head, and all I saw when I closed my eyes was you. How messed up is that?” He laughs in a mix of disbelief and bitterness.

I hold a hand to my throat, rubbing the hollow spot under my Adam’s apple with my fingers as I slowly open my eyes. “Way...”

He doesn’t seem to hear me.

“After that, I threw up. I set the gun down and I dry heaved for I don’t know how long. I laughed and I cried and I just—” He shrugs. “I wondered what you were doing. If you were happy. For the first time in years, I let myself remember you. All through the night. All the way until the sun came up, I pictured what could’ve been.”

He doesn’t seem to notice me watching him. I wouldn’t be surprised if he forgot I was even here. Somehow, I just know that this is the first time he’s ever given voice to these thoughts. Feelings. What happened that night.

I don’t dare try to interrupt. Not now, when I finally, finally feel like there might be an answer there, somewhere on the horizon. One I’ve been chasing for what feels like my whole life.

My heart is breaking—crumbling from what he’s telling me—and yet there’s something else there. Just beneath. Something...strange, yet familiar.

Hope, I think.

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way, right?” he says simply. His mouth ticks up. “It made me laugh thinking about it. I couldn’t get the words out of my head after that. They just kept playing on this...endless, delirium-ridden loop. Like a song stuck in my head on repeat. I just kept thinking how it was a play on our names, and it just...it hit me.”

He looks up at me then, eyes glinting with some unnamed emotion. “My dad had taken everything from me for as long as I can remember. My life revolved around trying to keep him happy. I just wanted him to love me, but by then, I knew it was pointless. Nothing I ever did would ever be good enough for him. It would never make up for what he lost. But he still had so much power over me, you know?”

I nod faintly.

“There was one thing he could never touch.”