Zack gave a short laugh, though it wasn’t unkind. “Logan, if half of what you just told me is true, then Adrian loves you more than you can imagine. You’re not an easy man, and the fact that he put up with you says a lot.”
Logan’s lips trembled as a memory surfaced. “You don’t understand… At my wedding… he…”
“Yeah, I heard,” Zack interrupted, his voice tinged with both irritation and understanding. “You were a complete son of a bitch to him. He came to tell you how he felt, and you tore him apart. Sounds exactly like something you’d do.” Zack smirked faintly, though his tone was serious. “If I were Adrian, I’d know you were full of shit. He probably saw right through you, saw how scared you were. That’s what you do, isn’t it? You push people away when they get too close.”
Logan shook his head, fearful of letting hope’s tender embrace settle in his chest. In this hollow space, he felt Adrian’s absence, where the pain was as piercing now as that first day of his departure.
“That song, Logan, come on,” Zack said. “That man is waiting for you, too; he is just as in love with you as you are with him. It was his way of reaching out to you.”
A faint, almost imperceptible spark flickered in Logan’s chest, a fragile ember of hope. He tried to ignore it, tried to squash it down, but it crept through his bones, settling in his belly and making him feel warm for the first time in years.
“You think?” Logan asked quietly, his voice tentative, almost childlike. It wasn’t the voice of a grown man; it was the voice of someone desperately hoping for a second chance.
Zack smiled at him, the corners of his lips quirking up in a way that was both amused and fond. “Yeah, I’m sure. If I had an Adrian, I’d be running to him right now. So, get the hell out of here, Logan. Go find him. Do it before it’s too late.”
Logan couldn’t help but smile, a wide, genuine grin that made his chest feel lighter. He turned to Zack and, without thinking, pulled him into a tight hug. Zack stiffened for a moment before relaxing into it, his hand patting Logan’s back awkwardly.
Logan held him there for a few minutes, letting his heart process what was happening, letting the weight of Zack’s words settle. Finally, he let out a harsh laugh and pulled back, looking at Zack with something like gratitude in his eyes.
“Thank you,” he uttered, his voice thick with emotion. Then, without waiting for a response, he got to his feet, his movements purposeful, his mind made up.
It was time to stop running. Time to find Adrian. Time to face the love he’d tried so hard to bury.
“Sure thing,” Zack said, forcing a smile. It was pained, but genuine in its way, a mix of bittersweet emotions he couldn’t entirely untangle. He watched Logan hurry out of the apartment, the door slamming shut with a finality that echoed in the quiet space. Zack stood there for a moment, staring at the closed door, his chest heavy with the weight of doing the right thing.
He let out a deep breath, running a hand through his hair as he sank back onto the couch. His head tilted back, his gaze fixed on the ceiling, but his thoughts were far away. “Damn, it sucks to be a good person sometimes,” he muttered to himself with a humorless chuckle.
After a moment, Zack shifted, his hand instinctively sliding into his pocket. His fingers brushed against something small and familiar, and he pulled it out carefully. Sitting in his palm was the old, worn lifesaver bracelet that had been a part of Logan for so long. The thread was frayed in places, the charm dull with age, but it was still intact, a physical representation of everything Logan had been clinging to.
Zack’s lips quirked into a lopsided smile, sadness tugging at the edges. He turned the bracelet over in his fingers, feeling its texture, its weight, as though it carried the echoes of the man who had worn it. A small part of him had wanted to throw it back at Logan, to watch his face light up with relief and gratitude. But he knew that wouldn’t have been the point.
This was Logan’s journey to make, his truth to reclaim. Zack’s role had been to nudge him in the right direction, to help him see what he’d been running from all along.
Sliding the bracelet back into his pocket, Zack sat in the quiet of the apartment, a faint, wistful smile still lingering on his lips. His life wasn’t perfect; hell, it was far from it. And the little spark that Logan had broughtwith him was gone now, leaving behind an ache Zack didn’t want to dwell on.
On some level, I had always known.
There was a quiet recognition that lived beneath the noise of everything else, a current beneath the surface, tugging at me long before I had the courage to name it. It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t clear. It was a subtle ache, the kind that only becomes unbearable once you stop ignoring it.
It had lived in me for as long as I can remember, curled in the shadows of my thoughts, watching, waiting. I kept it there—hidden—because I believed that if someone looked too closely, they might see it. And if they saw it, they might say it out loud. And if they said it out loud, I would never be able to take it back.
My thoughts were my confessional, and my prison. My shame was both the lock and the key. My memories—those cruel and tender things—were the only witnesses to the truth I was too afraid to claim.
Had I known all along? Yes. And also no. I felt it like a bruise I never touched. I feared it so completely that I chose not to look. I trained myself not to notice the way my heart stuttered when a beautiful boy walked past. I told myself it meant nothing. I told myself I was just different. Or broken. Or both.
I ignored the emptiness that echoed in me when girls tried to hold my heart, when they kissed me and I felt only the pressure of lips, never the warmth. I made excuses. I played along. I smiled through it, and I let them believe it was enough. But it never was. It never could be.
Because I had always wanted something else. Someone else.
I longed for different arms. For a voice that settled into my bones like the sound of waves. For a body that felt like gravity. For a soul that mirrored the ache inside me.
And when I look back now, when I gather all the pieces of my past with something that almost resembles bravery, I see it everywhere. It was always there. It was in the way the ocean seemed to whisper your name before I ever knew it. In the way my breath caught the first time I saw you, like my body had recognized something my mind hadn’t yet caught up to. In the way, I couldn’t meet your eyes that first day, afraid you’d see too much.
It was there in the way I memorized your laugh without meaning to. In the way my hands remembered your skin before I ever touched it. It was there in every unspoken thing between us, in every silence that said too much.
It was always there. Even when I pretended not to know. Even when I lied to myself. Even when I ran.
Even now, it’s still there.
