“I just...” I rub a spot on my chest. “I need to do something. I can’t keep living on the road. I can’t keep pretending it’s going to magically be okay one day, and I’ll want to go home. Coming here just felt...right. Living here again...”

I was happy here once, Waylon, don’t you see?

Gathering myself, I take a deep breath and run my fingers through my hair. “I know I messed up back then. I know you think I betrayed you. I’ve gone over that day—”

“Stop.”

I freeze.

Glancing up, I find his eyes squeezed shut, nose pinched between his fingers. I straighten. “Way—”

He ducks away into the shadows. “Just...stop. Stop talking.”

I watch in silence as he carefully, and quickly, collects himself.

He clears his throat. “We were kids, man. Shit happens, alright?” His eyes plead with me to drop it, and I get the feeling there’s another conversation going on here that I don’t have the key to even attempting to decipher. “We had a falling out. You moved. Case fucking closed. Don’t make something out of nothing.”

Ouch.

I must not do a good job of masking my wince, as his words decimate that tiny, shoved-away part of me that...hoped. Because, God, I hoped, and I am such. An. Idiot.

His face tightens briefly before he glances away. A beat passes, and then, with a low, nauseating snicker, he takes the kill shot. “Hell, I don’t even remember what it was about.”

I flinch.

Lying. He’s lying.

I know this—I know this—and yet the pain blooming harshly in my chest doesn’t seem to be getting the memo.

“So can we just, I don’t know, start over?”

I stare back at him. Again, a silent conversation seems to pass between us, the pressure mounting as he waits for me to respond. I know I could push the subject. Call him out and demand answers. I know I probably should. And hell, I’m more than half-tempted. I deserve some kind of explanation, damn it.

But what would be the point of dredging it up? What good would it do? Why open that bag of decade-old beef, when I’m no longer even sure I’m not just completely out of my fucking mind?

My conversation with Shawn and Mason replays in my head, and fuck, if I’m not a complete hypocrite for not backing the hell off. Because I meant it when I said I didn’t come back here for this. Hell, I just assured Waylon that wasn’t the case.

I didn’t come back here for this.

I didn’t come back here for him.

I’m not staying for him.

I’m doing this for me.

Simple as fucking that.

So I see his words for what they are. A second chance. An out.

But why does it feel so wrong?