He Left Again
James didn’t expect the knock.
He hadn’t moved from the couch in hours. His hair was a mess, his shirt was inside out, and he hadn’t brushed his teeth. Not since Tuesday. Time was fake.
So when the knock came again—three sharp, hesitant raps—it startled him. He opened the door, heart already halfway through the floor. Regulus stood there, soaked from the rain, manuscript clutched like a lifeline.
James’s mouth opened. Regulus beat him to it.
“I read it.”
James froze. Regulus’s voice was clipped. Cold. Not angry—just… holding something back.
James tried to smile, unsure if it landed. “Did you like it?”
Regulus stared at him. “What was I supposed to do with that?”
James blinked. “I—I thought you’d want to see it.”
“You didn’t ask.”
“Well, I didn’t think you’d talk to me!”
Regulus’s jaw clenched. He stepped inside without being invited.
“You wrote about me,” he said, low, like it hurt. “You wrote about me like I was already gone.”
James flinched.
“You were gone,” he whispered.
They stood there, inches apart, wet footprints on hardwood between them. Regulus looked like a storm. James felt like a match.
“I didn’t send it to guilt you,” James said. “I just—I didn’t know how else to say it.”
Regulus’s eyes flashed. “Say what?”
James looked at him, everything raw and too-bright. “That you changed everything. That you were the first person who read me like a person and not a bloody bestseller. That I—that I didn’t want it to end there.”
Regulus’s expression cracked. Just for a second. Then the storm returned.
“You think writing it down makes it okay?” he said. “You think poetry makes it safe?”
“I don’t know!” James snapped. “I just didn’t want to forget what it felt like before you walked away.”
Regulus stared at him, chest rising and falling like he was drowning in a sea he’d tried to leave behind.
Then, quiet: “I walked away because I was scared.”
James softened, but didn’t step forward.
“And now?” he asked.
Regulus didn’t answer. He looked at the manuscript in his hands. All 374 pages of it. Then at James. He placed it on the table.
And left.
Again.