The words cut deep, carving through Logan’s defenses like a tide reclaiming the shore. He closed his eyes, letting the sound surround him, letting the fire consume him. Adrian’s voice was everywhere—in the air, in his blood, in the ache that lived in his chest. Logan wanted to reach through the screen, to touch him, to hold him, to tell him all the things he hadn’t said.
The song ended, and Logan pressed play again. And again. Each repetition was a fresh wound, but he couldn’t stop. It wasn’t just a song—it was a lifeline, a reminder of everything he had lost and everything he still carried.
The beer sat untouched on the table. Logan didn’t notice. His eyes were fixed on the ocean, but he didn’t see the waves. In his mind, he was somewhere else: Adrian sitting on a sandy shore, laughing, playing foolish games just to make Logan smile. Adrian’s voice wasn’t just music; it was an invocation, pulling Logan back to a time when the world had made sense.
He whispered the lyrics under his breath, his voice trembling with emotion: “When you left, you took the best of me with you, was it hard for you to rise and leave?”
“Adrian,” Logan whispered into the emptiness, his voice cracking. “You don’t understand. Leaving was hard, but living without you? That’s harder. That’s impossible.”
He pressed play once more, the melody cascading over him, enveloping him completely, transforming him into something other than himself. He was a man unraveling, a soul fragmented by the notes of the one who had ever stitched him together. And he would listen endlessly, for it was the sole pathway to sensing Adrian’s essence, even if it shattered him from within.
The phone trembled in his hands as he whispered the final lines with Adrian, his voice a prayer, a confession, a plea:“I’ll be your lifesaver, even if you don’t wish to be mine...”
Logan lowered the phone, his heart heavy as the weight of the words settled over him. The ocean stretched out before him, dark and endless, a mirror of his own despair. He thought of Adrian, somewhere out there, playing that guitar, singing that song, carrying a pain that matched his own.
And for the first time in so long, Logan let himself weep openly, the tears falling like rain into the sea of his grief.
Logan’s mind wandered back to his wedding day, a day shrouded in the dull haze of regret and misplaced duty. He could still see Adrian, standing amidst the crowd, a storm of emotion in his eyes as he tried to reach Logan. Adrian’s voice had been raw, pleading, as he begged Logan to remember—to remember their love, their shared moments, the way they had held each other as though the world couldn’t touch them.
And then Adrian had kissed him. God, that kiss, it had been everything. Adrian’s lips tasted like his sweetest memories, soft and firm, a claim and a plea all at once. Logan had felt owned in that moment, utterly undone, as Adrian reminded him of what it meant to be kissed senseless, to be wanted, to bealive. That kiss had lingered in Logan’s soul long after the ceremony ended, haunting him with its certainty, its truth.
Now, sitting in the dim glow of the bar, Logan’s chest tightened with a desperation he couldn’t contain. He pulled out his phone, his fingers trembling as he opened the Facebook app. He didn’t know what he was looking for; he only knew he needed to see Adrian, to find a glimpse of him, a digital echo of the man who had once been his entire world.
His breath caught with the need to search for that small glowing green dot, to see it next to Adrian’s name. It was foolish, meaningless, and yet—if he saw it, it would mean Adrian was alive, breathing, existing in the same moment, even if an ocean stretched between them. Even if Logan’s night sky was silvered by the moon while Adrian’s world burned golden beneath the sun.
Somewhere, they were both looking at the sky. Somewhere, they were both breathing the same air. Somewhere, they existed in the same gravity.
Maybe Adrian was sitting by the water, watching the horizon, just as Logan was now. Maybe, against all reason, they were both whispering the same silent prayer.
He went to the search bar, but strangely, Adrian’s name, the first result for so long, was no longer there. Uneasy, he typed the first three letters of Adrian’s name, expecting the app to do the rest. It should have been effortless; his fingers had traced this same path a thousand times before, his restless mind returning to it like a tide pulled to shore.
After all, he had spent night after night searching, staring at the screen, hoping for some trace of him. By this point, the algorithm was the only one that truly knew Logan.
But tonight, for the first time, his name didn’t appear.
Nothing. Panic bubbled in his chest as he typed Adrian’s full name, his breath hitching. Still, nothing.What?He typed it again, his heart hammering as he pressed the search button. No results.
Had Adrian blocked him?
The thought hit Logan like a punch to the gut, and the panic spilled over, rising like a tidal wave. His chest ached with a suffocating pressure, and he struggled to breathe. He knew—heknew—he had no right to feel this way. He had been the one to block Adrian’s number, to shut him out, to walk away. But the thought of Adrian severing the last tenuous thread between them was unbearable.
Without thinking, Logan stood abruptly, his chair scraping against the floor. He moved to the closest table, where a couple was sharing a quiet dinner, their conversation interrupted by his looming presence. “Excuse me,” Logan said, his voice unsteady, barely more than a whisper. “I’m so sorry to interrupt, but could I borrow one of your phones? Just for a second. Mine’s dead.”
The man hesitated but eventually handed over his phone, unlocking it with a swipe. Logan’s hands shook as he opened the Facebook app, his fingers fumbling to type Adrian’s full name into the search bar. He pressed the search button, holding his breath, but the result was the same. Nothing. No account. No trace. Adrian was gone.
He stared at the screen for a long moment, his vision blurring. Then, slowly, he deleted the search and handed the phone back to theman. “Thank you,” Logan murmured, his voice hollow. “I’m sorry for disturbing you. Enjoy your evening.”
The couple exchanged polite smiles and returned to their conversation as if nothing had happened. Logan stumbled back to his table, threw down enough cash to cover his untouched beer, and walked out into the night, his legs unsteady beneath him.
He sat in his car for a moment, gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles turned white. Adrian had deleted his Facebook account. It shouldn’t have mattered; they hadn’t spoken in years, and the account itself had been dormant since Logan left. But it had mattered. It had been a lifeline, a fragile connection he had selfishly clung to, a flicker of hope that maybe, one day, he could reach back across the divide.
And now it was gone.
The realization tore through him, ripping open wounds he had spent years trying to ignore. Adrian was truly gone. The last tether to him had snapped, leaving Logan adrift in a sea of his own making.
The scream erupted from him before he could stop it, raw and guttural, echoing through the empty car. It carried everything he couldn’t say—the regret, the longing, the unbearable weight of losing the one person who had ever made him feel whole. It was the sound of a man breaking, his pain spilling out into the silence of the night. And when it ended, Logan was left with nothing but the hollow ache of his own breath and the knowledge that Adrian was lost to him forever.
Logan lost track of time as he navigated the winding, shadowy streets, the darkness blanketing him in a way that seemed intentional, easing him farther and farther away, letting the abyss consume him, the fog settling once and for all in his mind, with only the faintest hints of Adrian’s smile clearing the edges, traces Logan would chase for the rest of his days.
