I need you. I need you. Please.The silent cry echoed in Logan’s head, stabbing at the corners of his consciousness.
He blustered out of the apartment, barely registering Zack’s presence as he raced down the stairs and into the freezing morning air. The coldnipped at his skin, yet Logan remained oblivious, his mind a whirlwind of thoughts, his body thoroughly numb. He hurried toward the building’s garbage room, his heart pounding insistently in his chest, as if determined to keep him alive through sheer will, despite Logan feeling like he had stopped living a long time ago.
With a powerful shove, he flung the door open, the sharp sound echoing in the confined space. His breath caught in his throat, his chest constricting painfully as he surveyed the scene. The room was immaculate. Abandoned.
The trash was gone.
“No, no, no, no, no—please, no!” Logan’s voice cracked, the plea tearing through the stillness like a wounded animal’s cry. He stumbled forward, staring at the pristine floor as though willing the bracelet to appear. His knees gave out, and he collapsed onto the cold, hard surface, his hands hanging limply at his sides.
The weight of the emptiness around him pressed down on his chest, crushing him. He was drowning again, but this time, there was no Adrian to pull him out. His heart felt hollow, his mind spinning with despair. He clenched his wrist, his fingers digging into the bare skin where the bracelet had rested for years, the absence of it so wrong, so alien, it felt like a part of him had been amputated.
Hot tears began to spill down his cheeks, carving burning paths down his face. He didn’t try to stop them. The grief was too big, too consuming. He sobbed openly, his body wracked with tremors as the weight of his loss crushed him.
The bracelet wasn’t just a piece of metal and thread—it was his lifeline. The anchor that had kept him tethered to the memory of Adrian, the only man who had ever truly loved him, the only man he had ever truly loved.It had been his solace, his comfort, the one thing that made his empty, miserable life bearable.
And now it was gone.
Logan closed his eyes, the sharp and sour smell of garbage still clinging to the air, but he didn’t care. The world around him seemed to fade into nothingness as he sat there, his mind racing, his heart shattered.
Where do I go from here?
Logan drove back to the house, his hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles turned white. The nausea churned in his stomach, a violent undercurrent that made him want to pull over and retch on the side of the road. His throat felt tight, his chest heavy. He wanted to scream, to run, to do anything to escape the crushing weight inside him. It was too much—everything was too much—and he wasn’t strong enough to handle it.
Not anymore.
He found himself submerged, enveloped by the vast ocean, being drawn and pulled into an all-consuming void. Desperately, he attempted to breathe, but every effort was futile; his lungs screamed for air yet received only silence. The powerful undercurrent tugged at him, pulling him further into the abyss. He flailed his limbs, a frantic dance in an attempt to ascend to the surface, longing for that sweet breath of life. He wanted to scream, to release the terror locked within him, but from the depths, no sound escaped his lips. All the while, he sank deeper, swallowed by the water’s cold embrace.
The streets blurred around him, his mind barely registering the turns, the intersections. His body was on autopilot, his thoughts consumed by the relentless pain. A part of him wished for a car to swerve into his lane,for the impact to shatter him and bring an end to the torment. Anything, anything to quiet the storm inside.
By some miracle, he made it to the driveway. He parked the car, though he didn’t remember how. He stepped out of the car like a man surfacing from deep water, lungs burning, body heavy, each movement syrup-slow, as if the air itself had thickened. The house stood before him, lit from within, quiet as a lie.
He stared at the structure in front of him, his stomach twisting at the sight.
It wasn’t a home. It never had been. It was a shell, a façade, an eidolon, a monument to a life he didn’t want and a man he wasn’t. It was a stage dressed in beige and symmetry, the illusion of warmth curated down to the last throw pillow, a museum of someone else’s dream. Its windows blinked at him like blind eyes, all reflection, no depth. He stared at the front door, that silent witness to years of pretending, and something curled inside him, something old and sharp, like rusted wire twisting in his chest.
His feet dragged at the threshold, a wordless protest born from every memory this house had etched into him. There was a truth his body understood long before he allowed himself to admit it, and it was carried in his steps, in the heaviness, in the reluctance to be here, and in the familiar sensation he loathed. That… that was a home in name, but in truth, the place he hated most.
The house welcomed him with a sterile, empty silence. It was decorated in the perfect, curated style his father and Sandy had chosen; it was a life crafted for appearances, not for living. This wasn’t a sanctuary; it was a prison. The walls, the furniture, the very air suffocated him. He had spenttwo years escaping from this place in every way he could, but now, in that very moment, there was no escape.
The sterile walls crumbled before his eyes. One by one, specks of dust fell, each like a whisper of the past, cascading to the floor, gradually transforming the structure into nothing but a pile of ashes. It was not a home, neither for him nor for Sandy.
His mind threatened to shut down under the weight of it all. He was tired. So, so tired. Tired in his marrow. In his breath. In the silence between heartbeats.
Too tired to keep carrying the unbearable pressure.
Too tired to keep pretending this was enough.
Too tired to keep pretending he was okay, to keep acting like the gaping hole Adrian left in his life wasn’t swallowing him whole.
Too tired to lie beside someone whose touch made him feel even lonelier.
Too tired to keep fighting the pain that had etched itself into every fiber of his being.
Too tired to keep missing Adrian and pretending he didn’t.
Too tired of pretending this life fit him.
Too tired of being a husband in name, a ghost in truth.
