The words feel too small in his head. Too ordinary. He needs something sharper. He needs Tom to remember what he owes.
Daniel crouches in the dark, brushing cold gravel aside with impatient fingers.
Where the fuck is it?
It’s 2am. Despite the weather being tropical for the last few days, it’s starting to get chilly.
Now he searches for it with growing frustration. The gravel shifts under his hands, sharp edges digging into his skin. He swears softly. The night air bites at his cheeks.
But Tom is still very much the centre of his thoughts.
How dare Tom move on, as though those years meant nothing? As though the dinners, the trips, the arguments, the reconciliations, the vows —their marriage— were just a phase?
“You don’t get to erase me,” he whispers. “You don’t get to forget.”
It should have been simple. Tom should have read his message and agreed, instantly, naturally, the way it always was.
Daniel speaks, Tom follows.
That’s the rhythm they had perfected. That’s the way it worked.
He thinks back over the last year, how quickly Tom has slotted into some new version of his life, all smiles and friends and freedom. Like Daniel was never there. Like he never mattered.
His hands shake with the unfairness of it. No one else ever loved Tom like he has. No one else knows him that deeply. Tom belongs with him. Always has.
“Ineedyou back,” he mutters.
The words fog in the cold air.
And he means it. He’ll say whatever he has to. He’ll promise anything.
As long as Tom lets him in again.
Just one more time.
The phone is heavy in his pocket, the unsent reply burning a hole through the fabric.
About what?
He rehearses lines in his head.About us.Too soft.About how you still love me.Too hopeful.About how you owe me ten years of your life.Closer. That one has weight. That one might pierce through Tom’s arrogance, his newfound independence, and drag him back where he belongs.
Where the fuck is this rock?
Daniel continues to look through the flower beds, wiping his brow with his arm, his legs starting to ache as he stays crouched.
He clenches his teeth. Tom never understood what Daniel gave up for him, how much of himself he poured into that marriage. He never appreciated the rules that kept them steady, the order Daniel imposed to stop everything falling apart.
He needs that back.
He must have it, before it’s too late.
Daniel’s fingers rest on the rock that he’s been looking for.
Bingo.
The night is so quiet that even his own breathing feels loud.
Standing up, he palms the rock in his hand. That familiar rock. The same one they had during their marriage, Tom never got rid of it.
