Lacy didn't expect the conversation to linger.
But it did.
It followed him out of the café, through the wet streets, into the silence of his apartment. Cal's voice echoed in the quiet moments—the pause before music started, the hush before sleep. And for the first time in years, Lacy wasn't sure what kind of story he was in anymore. A love story? A memory? Or something else entirely—a lesson still unfolding in slow, careful pieces.
He kept reaching into his coat pocket without meaning to, fingertips brushing the folded paper like a compass.
Because something had changed.
Not everything. Not enough to rewrite the past.
But maybe just enough to begin asking a question he never dared before:
"What if I didn't know myself as well as I thought I did?"
He started journaling again.
Not out of sadness, but out of need. Out of wonder. The words were different now. Softer. Less angry. More curious.
"I never thought I'd miss the way he used to listen."
"He looked at me like I mattered—before I even knew what that meant."
"If I wasn't scared, would anything have been different?"
And then finally:
"Maybe love isn't just about romance. Maybe it's about being seen."
One evening, Lacy found himself walking back to the park where they used to lie on the grass and name stars like they owned them.
The bench was still there. Weathered. Lonely.
He sat down, pulled out his phone, opened a message draft, and hovered over Cal's name.
But he didn't send anything. Not yet.
Instead, he looked up at the sky and whispered, "I still don't get why the prince left."
And it didn't hurt anymore.
Because maybe the prince didn't leave to abandon the fox.
Maybe he left to understand himself.
Elsewhere in the city, Cal was rereading a book he once loved but hadn't touched in years.
He had bookmarked a passage once, long ago. The paper had yellowed.
"It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important."
And suddenly, the words didn't feel like a loss anymore.
They felt like truth.
Like a kind of love that could exist—even if it couldn't stay.
A few weeks later, Cal got a message.
Just five words.
"Hey. Want to catch up?"
No promises. No apologies.
Just a question.
He stared at it for a long time.
And then slowly, softly, he typed:
"Yeah. I think I'd like that."
Because some people don't come back to pick up the pieces.
They come back to build something new.
Not what was. But what could be.