He opened his laptop and clicked on the secret folder, watching as the screen filled with images from their trip. Each one hit like a wave. There was Adrian, a flash of sun in his eyes, a smile that seemed made of open skies and salt air. Logan clicked on a video, and suddenly the silence of the room was filled with the sound of Adrian’s laughter—clear, bright, like sunlight spilling over the water. It filled the room, filled his empty and aching heart, until it became too much, and he slammed the laptop shut, the sound echoing in the emptiness.
The darkness returned, pressing in, deep and endless. He lay back on his bed, fingers fumbling for the old, worn lifesaver bracelet Adrian had given him, the fibers rough yet comforting in his hand. He clutched it as though it could tether him, as though it could keep him from drifting further into the depths. He held it close, feeling the texture press into his palm, like holding onto a sliver of the past, a piece of something he could never let go. Closing his eyes, he imagined himself submerging in the seawater, letting it soak him, cover him, shallow breath and cold water, and the haunting memory of Adrian.
And now, here he was, in front of a high-end suit store with his father, who had already stepped out, more excited than Logan had seen him in years.
Inside, his father took charge, speaking eagerly with the sales staff, barely sparing Logan a glance. “It’s going to be a small wedding,” his father explained, rolling his eyes, “but we still need something that makes a statement.”
Logan looked around at the walls lined with suits, endless rows of dark fabric under harsh fluorescent lights. The whole place smelled of starch andpolished leather, like a theater of empty pretense. When the tailor asked what he wanted, Logan’s voice came out low and flat.
“That one,” he said, pointing to a mannequin in the far left corner.
“Sir, we have thousands of options, if you’d like to look around,” the tailor replied.
“No,” Logan said, barely looking at the suit. He could feel his father’s hand on his shoulder, his proud smile, the way his eyes gleamed with the illusion that this was a rite of passage, that his son was taking his place among men. But Logan felt hollow, his mind lost at sea, adrift on a current pulling him somewhere he did not want to go.
They took his measurements, lifting his arms, adjusting him here and there, and he complied mechanically, like a mannequin himself. His father chuckled with a proud gleam in his eye, murmuring about how it was “a man’s choice” to pick the first suit, never knowing the truth. Logan didn’t care about the suit. He didn’t care if it fit or if it looked good or even if he showed up at the altar in it. All he could think of was how much he wished this were different, how much he wished he were anywhere else, with anyone else.
Withhim.
He could almost feel Adrian beside him as they finished up, could almost hear the echo of Adrian’s easy laughter in the cold, sterile light of the dressing room.
For a fleeting moment—a mere second, a fraction of time—he dared to envision, to ponder, to wish… what it might be like if he were present now, selecting a tailored suit for a wedding ceremony alongside Adrian.
The tug in his chest sharpened, a twisting pain that seemed to tear something loose inside him, something he barely had the strength to holdonto anymore. That feeling swallowed him whole, vast and merciless, like staring into the bottomless pit of the ocean itself. It was like sinking past the last fingers of light, past the reach of the living world.
Like opening his eyes underwater and seeing nothing but black—no ground, no sky, only the crushing weight of salt and sorrow pressing in on all sides.
No breath.
No direction.
Just endless darkness, and the cold, and the slow, terrible knowing that he was too deep to ever find his way back.
In the enveloping darkness, he could still sense Adrian’s hand reaching out to him. He could almost hear his voice, so faint it teetered on the edge of imagination, beckoning him home, whispering his name, uttering words Logan dared not revisit, for fear they would shatter the fragile remnants of his wrecked spirit.
“Shoes?” his father’s voice cut through, bright and oblivious, slicing Logan back into the room like a knife through cloth.
Logan blinked, the world slamming back into place around him; the bright, soulless lights, the polite murmur of the tailor, the heavy pressure of the suit against his skin. His lungs felt raw, as if he had been holding his breath without realizing it. Like he hadn’t breathed for far too long.
“Whatever’s on the mannequin,” he mumbled, voice thick, unfamiliar.
He forced a smile, the kind of smile that left a metallic taste on his tongue, sharp and wrong, and nodded toward the man waiting with a tape measure and patient hands.
As he stepped back outside, the world around him seemed vast, empty, and unsteady, as if he were adrift on an endless sea with no land in sight.The sky above was pale and dull, and the buildings around him felt foreign, like towering rocks rising from a dark, turbulent ocean. He wanted to run, to escape to some distant shore where he could breathe again, where the weight pressing on him would dissolve into mist. But all he had was this suit, this role, this cage that felt tighter with each passing moment.
He knew now that he could keep moving forward, keep pressing through this hollow existence, even as his heart remained stranded, lost, unmoored, and forever tangled somewhere beyond the edges of this world, adrift in the waves and tethered to the only soul who had ever made him feel truly alive.
January 2, 2019—Seattle, Washington—Three Weeks Later
Between the waves, across the riptide, I have lost you. Drifted apart by streams of strong water pulling and taking away, one drifted to shore, the other sank and drowned under the pace of the ocean.
Loganlayinhischildhood bed, feeling the silence close in around him, tightening around his neck and pressing on his chest ribs. Tomorrow was the day. He closed his eyes, but sleep wouldn’t come; instead, it was as if he were suspended, drifting somewhere between waking and drowning. The night before his wedding, and all he could feel was the weight of a life that didn’t feel like his own.
For weeks, he had moved through his days like a ghost, smiling on cue. He asked the right questions. He laughed at jokes that didn’t land inside him.
He held Sandy’s hand in a daze or draped an awkward arm around her waist.
They’d visited families on the holidays and weekends, toasted at gatherings, nodded through dinners, and let the days blur together like waves he no longer bothered to chase.
