Didn’t have to.
Because I saw it in his face—the panic, the guilt, the desperate edge of someone watching everything they built start to fall apart and thinking the only way to survive is to dig a trench alone.
And I get it. God, I get it.
But knowing why doesn’t make it hurt less.
I walk back to my room, every step heavier than the last. The sheets are still tangled from where he slept, where we laughed and kissed and talked about nothing for hours. Just last night, I thought maybe this was it—the kind of love that could outlast the noise.
Now, it feels like I dreamed it.
My mom knocks softly before peeking in. “Sweetheart, you want some breakfast?”
Her voice cracks around the wordsweetheart.She’s trying too hard to sound normal, like there’s any version of normal left.
I shake my head. “Thanks, Mom. I’m good.”
She hesitates, eyes flicking to the bed, then to me. “He’ll come around, Logan.”
I want to believe her. I really do. But the truth sits heavy in my chest as I sink onto my bed feeling completely defeated. “I don’t think he will.”
That’s all it takes.
She crosses the room in two strides, drops down to the bed next to me and pulls me into her arms before I can blink. The kind of hug that anchors and undoes me at the same time. I fold into her without thinking, the same way I did when I was a kid and the world felt too big and unfair.
“It’s okay, baby,” she whispers, her fingers threading through my hair. “Just let it out.”
And I do.
The first tear hits her shoulder, and then it’s all of them—quiet, shaking, and impossible to stop. Every bit of fear and heartbreak I’ve been holding since the second that I realized that photo hit the internet spills out all at once.
She doesn’t say anything else. Just holds me, her heartbeatsteady under my cheek, her hand rubbing slow circles against my back.
“He loves you,” she murmurs after a while. “He’s just scared.”
I nod, even though I can’t get the words out around the ache in my throat. Because I know she’s right. Todd’s scared. I am, too.
But God, it still hurts.
When she finally pulls back, she cups my face in both hands, thumbs brushing away the tears that keep coming anyway. “You’re not alone, Logan. No matter what happens, you hear me?”
I nod again, because it’s all I can manage.
And when she presses a kiss to my forehead, I close my eyes and let her hold me like the world isn’t falling apart outside of these four walls, like love is still something that can be enough to keep a person standing.
Later that night, the house has gone still. Even the walls seem to know not to make a sound.
I’m sitting with my back against the headboard, knees drawn up, phone balanced on one thigh. The only light comes from the screen and the faint reflection of it on the rain-streaked window. It’s colder now—the drizzle from earlier turning to freezing rain that pings against the glass in uneven bursts, a soft, brittle sound that fits too well with the way I feel inside.
Outside, the world’s turned to gray slush. Inside, it’s just me and the glow of the storm.
I scroll.
Every swipe feels like dragging my thumb through mud. The photos everywhere now—every major sports account, gossip page, and fan forum. It’s me and Todd under the lightsat Riot, my hand curled around the back of his neck, both of us smiling like idiots into our very first public kiss. And if I thought the photo was bad, the video it was grabbed from is worse. After the kiss, he watches me like I’m his whole world as I throw my head back and laugh at something he said.
My gaze blurs as I continue to go through all the sites.
Underneath the photo, the comments stack like a slow avalanche.
