The algorithm knew. It always knew. At that point, Logan didn’t even need to type Adrian’s name; it appeared immediately as the first result. The algorithm had memorized the ache of his search, those countless nights spent typing Adrian’s name only to delete it again and again, before ultimately giving up and clicking search. It held onto what Logan’s heart refused to forget.
And now here he was, suddenly alive before him, not a memory but apresence. Logan’s pulse hammered against his ribs. His chest tightened, as though a wave had crashed over him and left him gasping for air.
Logan’s fingers froze, trembling ever so slightly as he stared at the screen. Adrian’s face, so alive, so real, yet impossibly distant. The sight struck him like a sudden fracture through glass, splintering him back into a time when the world had felt whole, before it had collapsed under the weight of regret. His heart thudded painfully, a relentless pulse in his chest, and fora moment, he wondered if he could ever breathe again without the weight of that name in his lungs.
Logan stared at the time of the post, the digits blinking at him, each one a cruel reminder of how much time had passed since that moment. Seven hours. Seven hours since Adrian had shared something that, despite everything, still seemed to call to him like a beacon in the dark.
It wasn’t even Adrian himself who had posted it. No. It was a friend, some distant face that Logan knew to be Adrian’s best friend, Dean, who was the one to pass this link along, a video. A video that, from the thumbnail, he could already tell was Adrian, sitting there on a stool. On a stage.
His heart skipped a beat.
Logan’s hands moved like they were on autopilot, fumbling through his bag, searching for his earbuds. He nearly knocked his glass off the table, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t care. He needed to hear Adrian’s voice, needed to see him again, even if it was through a screen, even if it hurt. His fingers trembled as he finally pulled them from the case, almost breaking the lead in his haste. He put them in, the cold plastic now the only tether to something real.
“Come on...” he whispered hoarsely, his voice raw, a whisper of desperation in the silence of the room. He pressed play on the video, and his body tensed, waiting for the few seconds it took to load, though it felt like hours.
His fingers drummed on his thigh in rhythm with the beat of his racing heart. Every second stretched longer, thicker, like the pull of an undertow that wouldn’t let go. Finally, the video started to play.
Ten thousand views already. Two days since it was uploaded. Ten thousand other people had seen this, had heard his voice, had witnessed the same thing Logan was about to. It made him sick with jealousy, and yet he couldn’t stop himself.
The video opened with a dark room, shadows dancing across the walls like forgotten memories. It looked like a club—dim lights, small stage, a crowd he couldn’t see but could almost feel in the thick air. And there, in the center of it all, was Adrian. Logan’s breath caught in his throat.
Adrian sat there, his long hair pulled back, wearing a simple white t-shirt and ripped jeans, looking impossibly at ease. His guitar hung in one hand, casually held, as though it had always been an extension of himself. He leaned into the microphone, speaking to the crowd, his voice smooth and warm, but Logan couldn’t understand a word. The language was foreign, a barrier between them that made him feel small, foolish. He wished—God, how he wished—that he had learned it, that he had done more.
Frustration crept up his spine as he watched Adrian’s lips move, but the words were just beyond his reach.
The crowd cheered softly, and then Logan’s heart lurched as Adrian’s fingers moved over the guitar strings. The sound that filled his ears was unfamiliar, a haunting melody that Logan didn’t recognize. It wasn’t the music of the world he knew, the familiar songs he’d listened to countless times. No, this was something else. Something pure, something deep.
Then, Adrian’s voice.
Logan’s chest tightened as the voice that had once filled his days and nights broke through, raw and untamed, the sound rich with emotion. It wasn’t a cover. It wasn’t something anyone had heard before. This washissong.
Adrian’s song.
The melody wrapped around Logan like an ocean current, pulling him deeper into the memory of what once was. The song, the way Adrian sang it, spoke more than words ever could. It washim. The very essence of him. The part of Adrian that Logan had left behind.
And in that moment, as the music washed over him, Logan realized that he hadn’t just lost Adrian, he had lost everything. The rhythm of his heart, the sound of his laughter, the quiet hum of his voice in the mornings—they were all gone. And nothing, not even a thousand videos, would ever bring them back.
The glow of the screen cast a faint light in the darkened living room. Adrian’s voice slipped through the buds straight to Logan’s ears, achingly pure, carrying a tone Logan had almost forgotten but never stopped craving. His first note was a balm and a blade, angelic and unearthly, piercing the cold silence that had become Logan’s life. As the song poured forth, each word laced with a quiet intimacy, Logan’s tears surfaced, unbidden, like they’d been lying in wait for this very moment.
I think of you when the sun climbs high,
I reach for you when I breach the tide,
I search for you whenever I rise from the depths,
I dream of you beneath the moon’s soft embrace,
I’ll take a breath just to give you mine,
Do you long for me as I ache for you through these endless days?
Adrian’s eyes were downcast in the video, almost shy, as if he were singing only for himself—yet Logan felt every word as if it were meant for him alone. He watched Adrian, enraptured, as he let his whole body surrender to the song, hands hovering over his guitar as if coaxing the notes fromsome hidden place deep inside him. Logan’s breath hitched. It was the sound of a man broken, of a man drowning by the same storm that Logan had created.
When you left, you took the best of me with you,
Was it hard for you to rise and leave?
Does your heart bleed as mine does still,
