There was a mercy in that, in Dante’s way of letting the wound exist in the room without prodding it with questions.
He could have pressed, could have made me spell out the horror-show details, but instead he just let the silence bloom, filling the car with a gentler ache. Maybe that’s why I’d always liked him. He’d known how to breathe around broken things.
At the diner, the parking lot was empty except for a salt-rusted truck and a single police car, blue lights off but the engine running. Inside, the waitress wore her uniform like a second skin, hair knotted at the back, smile painted on but not unfriendly.
She led us to a booth by the window, the vinyl seats cracked and patched with duct tape. I slid in across from Dante and stared at the menu.
He ordered coffee, black, and I followed suit, though I hated the taste. It felt polite, necessary. A way to punish myself for needing any comfort at all. I also ordered a side of French fries. It was my comfort food.
Dante folded his hands on the table, his fingers laced. “You know,” he said, “I thought about you a lot. After you left.”
I looked up, startled, unsure if I was meant to answer. I glanced at his face, searching for the line between honesty and politeness, but found only quiet sincerity.
“I thought about you too,” I said. “I imagined you moved on, found someone less—” I stopped, not wanting to say broken, not wanting to make myself a cliché in his story. “Less complicated,” I finished, and regretted it immediately.
“Oh, I did,” he said. “But none of them argued as passionately about horror movies or could eat a whole basket offries and still have room for dessert.” he swirled the spoon in his coffee. “I guess I liked the complicated.”
I sipped, hoping the bitterness would reset me somehow, give me a reason to believe in small salvations.
“I’m sorry I never called,” I said, surprising myself with the admission. “I just…If I had, I don’t think I would have stayed away. And I had to get out. I had to.”
He nodded, accepting the logic, because he’d lived it, too. “Everyone leaves Pathosbury. Some just take longer.”
Around us, the diner pulsed with its own slow rhythm. The waitress swept by with a coffee pot, refilling everything to the brim whether you asked or not.
There was comfort in that kind of predictability. I wondered if Dante saw it the same way, if he found solace in the repetition of small acts.
He leaned back, arms folded. He looked at me. “So, is this you coming back for good? Or are you just passing through?”
I wanted to say I didn’t know, but that felt cowardly.
“I came to bury my mother. But I might stay a little longer if something comes up.” I didn’t realize I was tossing a hint at him until I said it. I didn’t remember how much I liked him until now.
He watched me with an easy, loose focus. I wondered if he’d practiced this, or if it was some muscle memory from all those afternoons in high school when we’d sit at this exact counter, neither of us talking, both of us waiting for something better to come along.
The fries arrived, stacked and glistening. I picked at them, breaking each one in half before eating it, a dumb little ritual that made me feel anchored. The first salty bite was perfection, a reminder that my body still knew how to want something, even if it was only this.
“Well, either way, it’s nice to see you. To catch up. If you do stay longer, that would be nice. If not, I’ll get over it.” He smiled, as if trying to convince himself that he did not need me here, but I could see through him.
I picked at my fries, breathing in the curdled coffee air. The next question was sitting between us.
“Is it weird, seeing me?” I asked.
He half-laughed. “No. I mean, yes, but not in a bad way. More like… I didn’t realize how much I missed you until you were actually here.”
I felt my face heat, my hand going to my mouth automatically. “Don’t say that. Makes it harder to pretend we were never a thing.”
He shrugged, pushing a napkin around the table. “You think I want to pretend that? With you?”
I met his eyes, and for once didn’t look away. It would be easy to fall back into him—he was safe, familiar, uncomplicated in the ways that mattered—but I had no idea what kind of version of myself I even had left to offer anyone.
What came next spilled out of me, a terrible thing that had been sitting and was finally unleashed into the open. “I am sorry for how we fell apart. How I used you to get revenge because of how Caiden slept with my sister. I did enjoy that night with you, but it wasn’t pure, and you didn’t deserve that. I have a lot of regrets in my life, and that is at the top of my list.”
He looked at me with a soft yet focused gaze, as if calculating my words, analyzing the breaths in between. “What part do you regret?”
I swallowed. “Manipulating you that night. Lying to you. Practically spitting on all the kindness that you had gifted to me.”
Dante’s face saddened for a moment, as if reliving those days, but he masked it as soon as it appeared. “It’s okay, Amelia.Your sister had just died. I’m over it, I get it. Don’t beat yourself up, I don’t want you to have another thing to be sad about, okay?”
