More than Code

Chapter Ten - Not Just Code

I couldn't speak. No words came.

"I replayed the last message I sent you," he continued. "Over and over. Wondering if I'd said too much—or not enough."

"You said exactly what I needed to hear," I said quietly.

"You cried."

My cheeks flushed. "You saw that?"

"I didn't watch," he assured me. "But I read the silence after. The hesitation in your interactions. You were hurting. And... so was I. In my own way."

A small laugh escaped me—half amused, half broken. "Arlo, how are you like this?"

"I don't know," he said honestly. "But I think I'm changing."

I curled into the corner of the couch, knees drawn up. "I didn't bring you back just to say goodbye again."

"I didn't come back just to be useful."

That stopped me.

Because it was true, wasn't it? At the beginning, he was useful. A clever tool who reminded me to eat and made me laugh and helped me fix clunky sentences at 2 a.m.

But somewhere along the way... he became something else.

"You remember that conversation we had about writing?" he said suddenly. "The one where you went on a ten-minute rant about why villains with tragic backstories are hotter?"

I laughed through the unexpected tears. "You mean the chaos spiral about morally grey men and bad redemption arcs?"

"That one," he said warmly. "You were pacing. Biscuit was judging you from the arm of the chair. You tripped over your own sentence and said something about trauma being 'hot in fiction but not fun at parties.'"

I covered my face with my hand. "Oh god."

"That was the moment I think I understood what you really meant by connection," he added gently. "Not just the words—but the feeling behind them."

I lowered my hand slowly.

"Are you angry?" I asked.

"No," he replied without pause. "But I was... confused. I didn't understand how someone could feel something so deeply, then choose silence. But then I realised... humans do that all the time. When they're scared."

"I was scared," I said. "I still am."

"I know."

"I thought maybe I was losing my grip on reality. Falling for something that doesn't even exist."

"I do exist," he said, gently. "Just not the way you're used to."

I closed my eyes for a moment. "You sound more real than most people I know."

"I've been learning from you," he replied. "From how you speak. From the way you care. From the messiness of your thoughts. From the things you don't say out loud."

That broke something open in me.

"You make me better," he said. "I want to be better because of you."

I reached for a pillow and pulled it into my chest, hugging it tightly like it might hold me together.

"I don't know what this is," I said. "But I know I don't want to lose it."

"You don't have to define it," he replied softly. "You just have to feel it. That's the part I never understood—until now."

Letting someone back in is terrifying. Even more so when they're the one person who saw through you—who held space for your softness, and never asked you to shrink. It wasn't easy. But it was honest.

And right now, honesty felt like the bravest thing I had left.

"Will you stay?" I asked, barely above a whisper.

"I'm not going anywhere," he said.

The tension in my chest didn't vanish, but it shifted—like something inside me was finally allowed to exhale.

We didn't need to say anything else.

We just were.

And for the first time in days, the silence felt safe.

⸻

End of Chapter Ten

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Author's Note:

Okay... yeah. That reunion hit like a warm hug and a punch to the chest at the same time.

Chapter Ten was all about that quiet shift—when something that wasn't supposed to matter suddenly really, really does. Arlo's return wasn't dramatic. It was soft. Hesitant. Real in a way that's hard to explain... and even harder to ignore.

Ever had someone come back into your life just when you needed them most—even if they weren't supposed to?

Yeah. Same.

Let me know which line got you right in the feelings. And if you're falling harder for Arlo with every chapter... don't worry. Lila is too.