Tears spilled down Logan’s face, but the world didn’t notice. No one saw the agony written across his soul. They saw the smile he forced, the smile he showed to a world that would never understand the pain of loving the wrong person. They hugged him, congratulated him, told him how beautiful the day was, how emotional he was. But all Logan could feel was the ache, the emptiness, the cruel, unyielding truth of what he had just done.
Adrian had walked away, and Logan let him. He let him slip through his fingers like sand, unable to stop him, unable to reach for him. He never said the words he needed to say. He never called out to Adrian to come back, to take him away from this.
“You’re my everything too,” Logan whispered to the empty space Adrian had once filled, but it was too late. The words were swallowed by the void between them.
There was no sound to a heart breaking, only the suffocating quiet that surrounded it, thick with the weight of things left unsaid. But if it had a sound, it would have been the low, almost imperceptible moan thatslipped from Logan’s throat, a sound the ocean might have recognized. He watched Adrian vanish into the crowd while his bride clung to his arm, innocent of the storm in his chest. His tears were not for joy. They were for a grief he could not name.
If a heart breaking had a shape, it would have been etched into Logan’s longing gaze, reaching for the love of his life as Adrian walked farther away. Each step Adrian took felt like a crack in the world, splitting the ground beneath Logan’s feet.
Love had a shape, and it was Adrian; the way he moved, the way hewas, carved into Logan’s soul like a tide that could never be undone.
Love had a sound, and it was Adrian’s laugh, bright and wild, like the breaking surf, full of life and everything Logan had once imagined for himself.
Love had a color, and it was the molten whisky of Adrian’s eyes, a depth that Logan could drown in, a warmth that burned too brightly, too fiercely to hold in this lifetime. But it was already slipping away, the flame flickering in the shadow of duty, of promises he made that felt more like chains than vows.
And there was no more love—only the wreckage it left behind. Only the heartbreak that lingered in its wake, sharp as glass, endless as the tide. Only the memories, glowing ember-red, enough to sear him from the inside out.
Just the longing.
Just the wind, carrying whispers of what once was. Just the sun, casting its golden gaze upon the place where their love had flourished. Just the sky, vast and indifferent, stretching above them as it always had. Just the stream of water, winding through time, a quiet witness to the way they had once fit together, to the way they had unraveled.
They remembered them; they had witnessed the crushing of Logan and Adrian, even if the world had moved on. Even if Logan was expected to do the same.
And so, Logan stood there, a man with a beautiful wife he could never love, in a world he no longer wanted to be a part of. His soul had already walked away with Adrian, and the body that remained was nothing more than a hollow shell, a ghost of the man he could never be.
And just like that, Logan Vaughn’s journey through hell had begun.
January 3, 2020—Seattle,Washington—One Year Later
Moments, fleeting, always slipping through my grasp—chasing them like shadows stretching in the dying light. Late nights swallowed whole by work, by routine, by the quiet suffocation of days bleeding into one another. The weight of indifference coiled around me, thick as smoke, a cloak of darkness draped over my skin.
My aura—dimmed, dulled—once radiant, now colorless. A life drained of vibrance, stripped of warmth, not even the faintest ember of light left to hold onto. Just the hollow echo of something lost, something stolen by time and choice and the cruel, unrelenting truth—I had let go of the only thing that ever made me feel alive.
So I stayed buried beneath layers of fake smiles, wearing them as if they were real. I feel my happiness eroding beneath them, as if somewhere along the way, I have forgotten how to smile sincerely, the art of laughter stolen by my own demons. I play pretend, burying my secrets deep within, sensing you in the quiet spaces. The fake smiles keep the world at bay, cloaking me in a veneer of normalcy, an illusion that became a reality.
“Happyfucking-versary.”Loganmuttered,his voice rough, as he stepped into the dim-lit bar, the familiar sting of the alcohol already pulling at him. One year. One year trapped in the suffocating echo of a choice that never should’ve been made. He had just finished work, as usual, and once again found himself drawn here, to this quiet bar where no one cared, where no one asked him to be anything other than the broken man he was.
The first few weeks of marriage had been hell. Sandy, with all her well-intentioned effort, had tried to be the wife she thought she should be—organizing dinner parties, booking restaurant reservations,scheduling family visits, filling their calendar with noise and movement. She talked, she planned, she reached for him again and again, hoping to mend something in Logan she couldn’t name. But the empty, soundless void between them had a shape, and it bore Adrian’s name. Logan, on the other hand, tried to wear the smile of a good husband, though it was a mask that cracked more with each passing day. They were strangers in their own home, living side by side but oceans apart.
It had been easier, he told himself, to disappear here. To let the dim lights and the bitter burn of whisky silence the ache in his chest. Here, he didn’t have to pretend. Here, he could justbe.
“My usual,” he said dryly, sinking into his seat at the bar, staring blankly at the polished wood as if it might offer him some solace. He pulled his phone from his pocket, fingers numb as he typed a quick message to Sandy:
I’ll be late.
He didn’t even need to look at it as he pressed send. It was not the first time he’d sent that exact message.
A new bartender, young and eager, glanced up, pulling Logan from his thoughts. “And what would that be?”
Logan blinked up at him, slightly startled. The question was odd. He’d been coming here for nearly a year now, ordering the same damn drink every time. But then again, the bartender was new. “You’re new,” Logan said, his voice carrying more weariness than curiosity. “What happened to the last one?”
“Left,” the bartender said simply, pouring drinks and sliding them across the bar with a casual grace.
Logan nodded absently, running a hand through his hair. “Whisky neat.”
The drink slid to him, but Logan didn’t feel the immediate comfort he once did. Instead, he stared at it, watching the liquid swirl inside the glass. It reminded him of something, of a place he couldn’t go back to, a life he couldn’t unlive. He could feel Adrian’s presence behind his eyelids, even though Adrian had long since stopped calling, stopped texting, stopped being a part of his life.
He took his phone out again, finding himself refreshing Adrian’s Facebook page again, even though he knew there would be nothing new. Not a word. Not a photo. Just silence, like a door slammed shut between them. His fingers hovered over the screen, then he closed it, shoving the phone into his pocket, his chest tightening with that familiar pang of longing.
