[i]”Rob,”[/i] was the first word to come out of her mouth. It seemed to say so much. Hold so much weight. Understanding. And yet it was the only thing she would say. 

And as she moved close to him and held him, Rob could feel the future play out in front of him. The next shows, the next tour…every moment they had been working towards. And he couldn’t shake the overwhelming sensation that if things hadn’t been messed up before…

…they surely were now.

And as he followed her, and lay down with her—as he felt her wrap her arm around him, and the cool air filled with hazy smoke from the joint shared between them. Her actions were so...honest. Real. And yet in them there was no denial, nor acceptance. Just...understanding. 

Their breathing slowly aligned to each others, and the pulse shared moved with them. [i]In. Out. In. Out.[/i]

Slowly, as Jane fell to sleep, and as his eyes began to close, he realized what he had done wasn’t something he could ever take back. All those years, all those moments with Jane he longed for again; they would never come back. A damning truth had cut between them. It was a truth that would remain for every word spoken, every touch shared, every intimate and platonic moment they would ever share. 

Perhaps it would’ve been better to hide the truth from Jane. Maybe he could’ve come up here, acted as if it truly were the single that had thrown him for a loop. He could’ve lived a lie. He could’ve embraced that fallacy for the simple sake and making things they way they used to be. Yet, all of those possibilities, all of the opportunities, were all gone. All for the chance he had to really be intimate with a person he had never known to be so open.

It was all so fucking stupid. 

And as he closed his eyes, he hoped as much as he figured Jane had hoped that this moment wouldn’t end. Because nothing could ever really be the same. Not with her. Not ever again.