“I’m sorry I didn’t text either,” he said, his voice careful now, like he was trying to read Adrian, trying to navigate around something fragile. “I was tired. And… a bit drunk. I just fell asleep.”
Adrian blinked.
“Drunk?” His own voice betrayed him, too quiet, too raw, too exposed.
Logan nodded. “Yeah. Closed the deal. The team wanted to go get some drinks. Couldn’t say no.” How many times had he whispered those words to Sandy, fabricating stories in the dim glow of deception? Too many to count. Now, he spoke them to Adrian, and for the first time, they were true. The irony of it was not lost on him.
And that was it. The last piece of rope in Adrian’s chest snapped.
Because of course.
Of course, Logan had been out drinking with his team, with people who weren’t trapped inside the walls of a hospital, who weren’t rotting away from the inside out, who weren’tdying.
Of course, he had forgotten.
And why wouldn’t he?
Adrian wasn’t something you remembered anymore.
He wasn’t something you longed for.
Not like before. Not like when he was still beautiful, still alive, still whole.
And on some level, Adrian was happy for him. Logan needed to have some moments like this. But…
He could picture it so fucking clearly—Logan, in a dimly lit bar, surrounded by easy laughter, by bodies that were strong and alive and desirable. Maybe someone had looked at him a second too long. Maybe Logan had looked back. Maybe there had been a hand on his arm, a touch against his back, a voice that didn’t tremble with exhaustion, a mouth that didn’t taste like sickness and hospital air.
Maybe, for a moment, Logan had forgotten what was waiting for him here.
Forgotten who was waiting.
And maybe—just maybe—Logan had felt something close to relief.
Adrian let out a quiet laugh.
Small. Bitter. A sharp, self-inflicted wound.
“Okay.”
Just that. A single word spoken quietly and flatly, but it carried everything Adrian didn’t have the strength to say.I don’t belong to your world anymore. You don’t need to lie to me. Just go.
In a gentle yet firm movement, he pulled his hand from Logan’s, needing space he didn’t know how to ask for. He couldn’t bear to be touched like this. Not like he still mattered. Not when every cell in his body was screaming that he didn’t. That it was ridiculous—pathetic, really—to be lying here, in this bed, in this failing body, waiting for a man far too good, far too alive, to remember him.
And he hated himself for it.
He hated how quickly the thoughts turned on him, how easily they spiraled into something cruel. Hated the jealousy that curled inside his veins, poisonous and quiet, burning slow. It wasn’t fair, and he knew that, but knowing didn’t stop the ache. It didn’t stop the sharp sting of resentment that flared in his chest at the simple fact that Logan still got to exist out there, in a world that wasn’t defined by IV lines and blood tests. That Logan got tolive,while he was here, rotting from the inside out.
He hated what this had turned him into.
“What’s wrong?” Logan asked, sitting up, his voice careful, the edges lined with concern. His brows knit together as he studied Adrian, trying to read the storm he could already feel.
Adrian didn’t answer. He just stared at the blanket bunched in his lap, focused on the creases, the folds, the places where the fabric had thinned.
“Nothing,” he eventually said, and it sounded like a lie even to his own ears.
Logan’s voice softened. “It’s because I didn’t call, isn’t it?”
Adrian turned his face away. He couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t meet those kind eyes, still full of warmth, blind to the hollowed-out ruin he had become. Because Logan, perfect Logan, was still here. Still trying. Still choosing him, over and over. And Adrian... Adrian was turninginto a bane, a venomous vexation, cloaked in a deadly aroma with jagged edges—an unbearable burden no soul should have to bear.
