It was past eleven o'clock. Sylvain's breathing is slow and heavy when Byleth finds him at a private room in a hospital.
His eyes are closed, but he feels her presence. It charges the atmosphere in the room, making him long to touch her, but he falters at the idea that he could possibly hurt her.
Felix will plummet him the next time they meet, hard enough for him to come back here as soon as his friend was done with him. His car is wrecked and he could not afford to have it fixed, lest replace it with anything other than a compact.
Not that he would use it for anything. Judging by the angry look on the police officer's face when they came around to question him what had happened, he certainly is going to lose his driving license at this audience they called. He is also pretty sure he can kiss a few accounts goodbye, since he saw that his accident, a photo taken without permission from his social media that prominently featured him with a drink in his hand, and the caption "Major Traffic Jam Caused By Reckless Driving" made it just in time to be broadcast on the evening local news.
Losing his girlfriend would really make this day the worst in his entire life.
"I thought they would call my mother." Sylvain says in greeting; his voice tight as his ribs protest any movement, any breath.
Honestly, he was overjoyed that she came to his aid, but anyone not related to him would be great, too.
Byleth shakes her head, holding up her phone as some semblance of evidence. "Ingrid called me as I was leaving the school. She told me about the accident. She asked me to come and take care of you, since she and Glen were busy taking Felix home."
Sylvain sighs, then gasps in pain. "I think Felix is angry with me…"
"You think?" She all but shouts. "You think Felix is angry with you? Sothis, Sylvain, I am angry with you! How could you do this to us? To me? To yourself!"
The redhead furrows his brows, confused at her outburst. His eyes wander over her body; the speed of her breaths combined with the flush under her skin and the thin line of her lips suggests her anger, but her eyes…
Her eyes show pain. Anger is there, it is simmering away quietly, waiting for fuel to be added to the fire, but, through it all, pain is the key emotion. He cannot help but wonder how long he has been blind to the pain in her eyes. He wonders whether it was visible every time he kissed her goodnight before leaving her once again.
Throwing her hands in the air, Byleth crosses her arms over her body, protecting herself from whatever else is about to happen.
Nudging the chair leg with her foot, she sighs. "Come on, the doctor said you can be released, but someone should stay with you for the next 24 hours for observation, to make sure you are not concussed. I'll take you back to your apartment and I'll ask Dimitri if he can keep an eye on you if you prefer that I don't sleep over."
Sylvain frowns, opening his mouth to begin to protest, but he decides against it at the last moment. Instead, he slowly pulls himself out of the bed, doing his best to hide the grimace that falls across his face at the first hint of pain, and then he walks to the bathroom so he could change.
The short cab ride between the hospital and his building is silent and full to the brim with awkward tension. It was not the first time that Sylvain had considered buying his girlfriend a car, since it would certainly make this less awkward if a stranger was not checking them out periodically on their rear-view mirror. Every time he broached the subject, though, Byleth would look him as if he had grown a second head and argue that she did not have a garage to keep it.
The redhead is so out of his depth, though, he is almost willing to rehash that conversation. He does not know what to say; he does not know what to do. He cannot decide whether he should reach across the bench and take her hand, offering her some form of comfort, despite it being him who is injured.
He does not take her hand. He chickens out at the last moment, unable to stop thinking about the pain in her eyes. Instead, he clenches his hand into a tight fist, willing himself to keep his hands to himself.
Distantly, Sylvain tries to pinpoint the exact moment it went wrong between them both. It was not his job, as Byleth was just as dedicated to hers. It was not jealousy or fear of him cheating on her. It was not because of his family name, nor because she found an easier mark.
It comes to him all at once.
"What is your problem with my apartment?" She had asked him once.
None. He had no problem with her apartment at all, except that, perhaps, he would prefer to have its leaser living at his own.
"Why do you never want to sleep over?"
Because… Because… This was hard even to think about, he wonders how he is supposed to speak aloud.
He never stayed the night. He had left her too many times. She is sad because she thinks he is not invested in the relationship. She thinks this is all an avoidance tactic that he perfected over his life, and, well, it could be argued that it is.
In a way, he had been right on the money from the start. He is losing one of the people he cared most about because of his anxiety, but not because he was anxious, but because he could not manage to communicate properly his thoughts.
Tilting his head back onto the headrest, closing his yellow and usually keen eyes, Sylvain deliberates whether he had left her alone one too many times, whether his time with her was now finally, actually running out. He can feel that crack in his heart grow wider, more painful, as things fall on its places and he realizes how stupid, how absolutely naïve he had been.
He feels it and he does not like it.