Alex smiled, and was surprised to find it didn’t hurt. “Good. I’m glad.”
“I’m seeing someone new,” Sam blurted, then winced. “Sorry, that’s—I didn’t mean to just—”
And that, he decided, was enough.
Sam nodded, but his eyes were wet. “I’m sorry.”
Then, slowly, the silence stopped feeling like absence and started feeling like space. Room to breathe. Room to notice the things he’d neglected: his own friends, his half-finished novel, the guitar in the corner that had gathered dust.
“Someone has to be.”