Regulus Reads the Manuscript James Shouldn't Have Sent
Regulus didn’t mean to open it.
He told himself he’d just hold it. That he’d keep it sealed, unread, unimportant. That it didn’t matter. That he didn’t matter. Then he saw his name on the title page.
Not “Regulus Black.”
Just R.
'For R.
Who makes silence sound like thunder.'
He flipped to the first page. His eyes caught the first line—and stuck.
> "He never knocked when he came in. Just appeared, like he’d always belonged there, sunlight dripping off his shoulders and chaos clinging to his boots."
Regulus blinked. Again. Slower this time.
> "He’d talk like the world had never broken him. Like it couldn’t. And maybe that was why I hated him first—because I wanted to believe that was possible."
His hands started to shake. The voice in the story wasn’t James the author. It was James, the man. The friend. The idiot with honey eyes who looked at Regulus like he’d found the stars weren’t in the sky after all—they were in him.
Regulus turned the page.
> "I wrote about monsters because I didn’t want to write about him. Because he wasn’t a monster. He was worse. He was beautiful."
He slammed the manuscript shut. Like that would stop the ache. Like it would un-read the words. Un-feel the things they dragged to the surface. He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes and sat on the floor, legs pulled to his chest, the manuscript a bomb beside him.
It wasn’t just a story. It was him. It was them.
Or what could’ve been.
If he’d stayed. If he’d kissed him. If he’d been brave.
Regulus curled tighter, like he could make himself smaller than the truth.
Because James wasn’t stupid.
James was honest.