He looks at you, really looks at you, and it’s been so long since he did that. His eyes linger on the birthmark under your eye, the purple of your glasses. You’d forgotten that. You’d forgotten how it felt for his gaze not to skate over you like you were a ghost or a breeze or something else, non-corporeal and ultimately irrelevant. “Does it matter that I never wanted to hurt you?” he asks. “Does it change anything at all?” One hand grips the back of his neck, the other dangles by his side. He is not the boy you used to know. You step forward and that intensity that you’d come to rely on, that pulse of energy between his chest and yours is gone. Dissipated into two strangers with tense shoulders and mouths set in thin lines and palms full of regrets and empty wishes. You look for the regret in his eyes. It’s there, but locked behind something cool and distant. “No,” you decide, voice quiet but firm. “But I really wish it did.”

Words by L.A.L

Photographer: Adam Dawda
Model: Russlana Bila