Beneath the sorrow, past the pain,
Across restless nights and settled loneliness,
Like an angel’s whisper, like a devil’s taunt,
You dance within my dreams,
Just as they flutter, about to slip away.
You are here, flesh and bone,
My deepest wish, at last, comes true.
Adrianlayinthehospital bed, unmoving, eyes locked on the ceiling. He memorized it in the same way a prisoner memorizes the cracks in the wall, simply because there was nothing else to do. Every line, every shift of shadow in the sterile white tiles had become part of his world, more familiar than the reflection in his own mirror.
Time no longer moved forward. It circled, caved in, dragged itself over, and over, an irrepressible wheel. He was still here.
Still in this bed.
Still in this body that refused to work.
His body had become a traitor. A place he didn’t recognize anymore. Weak, foreign, constantly betraying him in small, humiliating ways. The pain was not sharp, not always. It was worse than that. It was constant. Dull and dragging, woven into the fabric of his being. Some days, he couldn’t even tell where it started or ended; it just was. It had become part of him.
His phone sat beside him, untouched.
No messages. No missed calls. No,I’m sorry, I’m swamped, baby. I’ll call tonight.
They had made a rule. One rule in the middle of all this chaos, this war. One promise they had clung to in that first time they had been apart, and Adrian was too weak to sit up or answer the phone, when Logan had paced the floor with the weight of silence pressing against his ribs.
Never go to bed without speaking.
One call. Every night. No matter where Logan was. No matter how long or how short the words might be. One line of connection. One thread of love stretched across whatever distance the world tried to put between them.
But last night, for the first time, Logan broke that promise.
Logan had been gone for nearly a week now, off on a business trip he couldn’t reschedule. Adrian hadn’t protested. He’d nodded, saidI understand, even smiled. But it wasn’t the truth. Not really.
It wasn’t that he didn’t understand. Logically, he knew Logan had to work. Logically, he also understood that Logan was scheduling all his meetings to the minimum amount of time so he could return sooner. He knew that a week, in the grand scheme of things, wasn’t all that long. He knew Logan loved him, had shown it in a thousand ways since this nightmare began. But logic had little weight when your world was reduced to four white walls and the steady hiss of machines. When days no longer unfolded but blurred together like water over glass, until the edges of time disappeared.
When the life outside this room began to feel like a dream you had once touched but no longer belonged to.
In that space, a week became a lifetime. A single day grew heavy as stone. And a few missed calls could hollow out a chasm that no words could cross.
And after so many nights spent side by side, Logan’s absence felt vast. Adrian hated how much he noticed it, how much he needed him. Hated the quiet shame curling in his chest as he stared up at the ceiling, wondering if he was being too much. Too dependent. Too broken.
Was it selfish to want to hear his voice? To want to feel his hand on his cheek, his breath against his skin? Was he being clingy? Needy? Was he asking too much of someone who already carried so much? Someone who, if he was honest, could have an easier life with someone whole?
He shut his eyes, allowing those intrusive thoughts to settle in his mind, persistent and hard to ignore, while the silence continued to gnaw at him.
There was nowhere to retreat.
And what hurt more than the pain, more than the chemo, more than the nausea and fevers and cold sweats, was the ache of being forgotten.
Because he wasn’t just sick. He wasn’t just dying.
He was starting to feel invisible.
He turned his head toward the window, the light slanting in across his face. Even the sun looked bored with him.
