The voice that answered wasn’t there. It was in his head, a ghost from a Tuesday three years ago.
But next Tuesday never came. Leo’s car hydroplaned on the wet highway the next morning. The funeral was small. Alex stood in the back, hands in his pockets, color-coded grief that didn’t fit any category. flashback original
That was the moment. The one Alex would replay a thousand times. The moment he should have said more. Should have closed the two feet between them. Should have told Leo that the reason he never jumped, never risked, never spoke was because the only thing he truly wanted was standing right there, and losing that was a fall he’d never survive. The voice that answered wasn’t there
And for the first time in three years, he believed it. Leo’s car hydroplaned on the wet highway the next morning
Alex had inched forward. Not to the edge, but closer. Leo was the only person who could do that—pull him out of his own cautious orbit. They’d been friends since freshman year, a mismatched pair: Alex the accountant-in-training who color-coded his notes, Leo the art major who painted murals on abandoned buildings.