“Never Let You Go (This Time)”
inspired by Saint Asonia’s cover of “Blinding Lights”
©ESR 2025

The city glows like a bruise beneath my boots,

wet asphalt mirroring all the things I can’t say.

I’m not supposed to be here.

Not tonight.

Not after how we left it last time.

But the sky cracked open with static,

and your name hummed in the lightning.

I walk by your window without slowing,

like I’m just passing through,

like I don’t still dream of your hands

reaching for mine in the dark.

Truth is…

I’ve been drowning in this night for hours,

and you’re the only lighthouse

I’ve ever trusted to stay lit.

I tell myself I won’t knock.

I won’t wake you.

But my fingers twitch with the rhythm

of everything we never got to finish.

This song playing in my headphones

is a confession I don’t know how to say out loud.

I’m just walking by to let you know…

You always knew when I was lying.

Even in silence,

you heard the truth in my pulse.

I stop under the streetlamp across from your building,

soaked in shadow,

watching your light flicker on.

And maybe you won’t come to the window.

And maybe I won’t move.

But if you do,

and if you see me here,

this time,

I won’t run.

I won’t let you go.

⸻
_____

Scene: “And Then She Saw Me”

The glow of her lamp cuts through the downpour,

soft and golden, like the memory of a safer time.

And then…

the curtain shifts.

It’s her.

Barefoot.

Wrapped in the same oversized sleep shirt she always wore when the world felt too loud.

Her hair’s a little messy.

Her eyes take a second to adjust,

still heavy from dreams that probably hurt more than they healed.

She sees me.

At first,

she doesn’t move.

Just presses her fingers to the glass

like she’s not sure I’m real…

or if I’m another ghost her heart has conjured

because it’s tired of waiting.

I want to raise my hand.

I want to say something.

But I’m soaked through.

My voice feels buried under the weight of the rain.

So I just look at her

and try to say it all without saying anything.

I’m sorry.

I’m still here.

I couldn’t stay away.

I don’t want to lose you again.

Please.

She vanishes for a breathless moment.

And then the front door creaks open.

She steps outside,

bare feet against slick pavement,

arms wrapped around herself like armor that never quite worked.

And I swear the thunder hushes just long enough to hear her say,

in that voice that always sounded like home and firelight…

“Don’t make me come out here for nothing.”

I laugh.

God, I laugh and almost cry.

Because that’s her.

That’s her.

I take a step forward.

She doesn’t move away.

She doesn’t flinch.

So I close the space between us

and I wrap her in my coat

and I swear to every star cracked open above us…

“I won’t.”

_____
_____

“When He Realized”

(His point of view)

He didn’t expect her to come to the window.

Hell, he didn’t expect to still be standing there,

twenty minutes after promising himself he’d walk away

if she didn’t look down.

But there she was, barefoot and blinking,

wrapped in some oversized sweater that didn’t match her softness at all,

hair mussed, mouth parted,

like maybe the dream hadn’t fully let her go yet.

And he…

He forgot how to breathe for a second.

Because it wasn’t just her face.

It wasn’t even the way her voice cracked the quiet with a simple,

“…You stayed?”

It was the weight of it.

Like the world had tilted a little,

just enough for all the loose pieces in him

to slide toward one gravity:

her.

She opened the window a little wider.

Didn’t smile, exactly…

but there was something in her eyes that said,

“I don’t know if I can trust this, but I want to.”

And that was when it hit him.

Not all at once.

No lightning flash.

No fireworks or orchestra or big reveal.

It came like the smell of rain before the storm hits,

quiet, electric, inevitable.

This was it.

Not just her.

But this—this fragile, aching moment.

This honesty.

This risk.

This was what “home” felt like.

And god, it hurt.

Because now that he’d felt it,

truly, deeply felt it,

he knew he’d never be able to pretend again.

Never be able to lie to himself that what he’d had before was enough.

Never be able to settle for warmth without soul again.

She looked at him like she was afraid of her own hope.

And that was the moment he wanted to weep.

Because he knew that look.

He’d worn it in mirrors.

He raised a hand, slow, like offering peace to a trembling animal.

“I didn’t come here to fix anything,” he said softly.

“I just… I couldn’t leave without seeing if the light was still on.”

Her silence answered louder than words.

He didn’t ask to come in.

Didn’t push.

But when she nodded once, tiny, like the world might break if she moved too much,

and stepped away from the window…

he knew.

He was never going to be the same.

Not because she saved him.

Not because she filled some emptiness.

Not even because she let him in.

But because, for the first time,

he saw someone

who had the same storm in their chest,

and instead of drowning in it,

she was learning to breathe underwater.

And now…

maybe he could, too.

⸻

⸻

“The Invitation”

She didn’t say anything when she opened the door.

Didn’t need to.

The sound of the lock turning,

slow, hesitant, but certain,

was enough.

So was the way she stood behind it,

clutching that same too-big sweater around her like armor,

even though it had slipped off one shoulder.

Even though her bare feet made no sound on the tile.

He stepped inside like a man entering sacred ground.

Not because of the place,

but because of the offering.

Because she’d let him in.

And not just into her apartment.

Into the fragile, echoing quiet of her after-midnight self.

The part she usually kept shuttered.

The part no one ever saw

unless they were willing to stay.

And god…he had stayed.

She didn’t offer him a drink.

Didn’t make small talk.

Didn’t do anything but look at him

with those storm-lit eyes

and whisper, “You look like you could use a hug.”

He nearly broke at that.

Because no one had asked him that before.

Not like that.

Not with such naked sincerity.

So he nodded.

And she stepped close.

It wasn’t dramatic.

Wasn’t rushed or desperate or fiery.

Just two people,

learning the shape of each other

with arms and breath and the silence that only comes

when nothing else needs to be said.

She fit against him like she’d always known the space he left behind.

And he held her like she was the answer

to a question he hadn’t realized he’d been asking

his whole life.

He pressed his cheek to her hair.

She sighed against his chest.

And they stood like that, swaying slightly,

as if the world outside no longer existed,

just the pulse of two hearts

beating out

we made it, we made it, we made it.

He didn’t need to stay the night to know he’d already arrived.

He didn’t need to kiss her to know this was holy.

This was the threshold.

Not of her apartment.

Of her.

And she had opened the door.

⸻

_____

Let the reader imagine the rest.

Let them close the book or walk away from the screen

knowing this—

that soft endings are not lesser endings,

and sometimes the bravest thing you can do

is say yes

to someone who knocked

without demanding entry.

Let them wonder what it’s like to fall asleep

not because the body gives out,

but because the soul finally feels safe.

Let them dream of quiet beginnings.

Let them, too, remember

that home is never lost.

Sometimes

it just waits

for the courage

to open the door.