His voice fractured at the edges, but he pressed on, like a man bleeding through his own honesty.
"I didn't know how to love you back then," Tim confessed, his breath shallow, almost shaking. His eyes swept over her face, memorizing her, as if this might be the last time she'd let him. "I only knew how to hold on too tight and still felt you slipping through my fingers."
Aurora squeezed her eyes shut, but it didn't stop the tears. It only made them hotter, more brutal. "Tim… stop," she breathed, though she didn't sound like she meant it.
He didn't. He couldn't.
"I can't," he rasped. "Not when I've been silent for too long. Not when my chest feels like it's caving in every time I look at you and remember I let you go."
Her fists clenched at her sides, with her nails digging into her palms to anchor herself, but it didn't work. Nothing could stop the storm in her chest.
