He couldn’t look at Logan—not directly. But in the cruel, flickering theater of his mind, he saw it all unfold.
Hesawthe moment Logan was considering it. Saw the calculation behind his silence. Saw him weighing desire against duty, loneliness against loyalty.
He imagined the quiet decision—Logan rising slowly, maybe brushing Adrian’s arm with a gentle thank you, something kind enough to ease the edge of it. Then the door would whisper shut, and his footsteps would fade down the hallway. Maybe toward Zack. Maybe not.
Adrian imagined him waiting now—easy smile, that casual lean. No need for words. No need to ask. Some people just know when the door’s about to open.
And Adrian… Adrian would lie here in this bed, IV line snaking into his arm, mouth dry, chest hollow, listening to the space where Logan used to be.
He wouldn’t cry.
He would clench his jaw. He would stare at the ceiling and count the seconds. He would pretend it didn’t burn more than the chemo. Pretend he wasn’t measuring every minute by the sound of Logan not coming back.
If it wasn’t Zack, it would be someone else.
A stranger, faceless and charming. Met through a screen, or the blurred edge of a bar. Someone younger, someone whole. Someone who didn’t flinch when touched.
He would understand.
Hemeantthat.
But meaning it didn’t make it hurt less.
He would understand, and it would still tear through him like a slow blade. He would never truly recover.
But he would understand.
He would.
Because Logan was still whole. Stillalivein ways Adrian no longer was. His blood still surged with want, with fire. His hands still itched for touch. His body hadn’t been rewritten by poison.
And Adrian, as much as it tore him open to admit it, couldn’t give him that. Not anymore. Not now.
He was too thin. Too tired. His skin no longer felt like his. He barely recognized himself in the mirror. Whatever version of manhood he had once carried so easily, so instinctively, had long since burned away in hospital lighting and the cold sterility of survival.
He was still Logan’s boyfriend, technically. But not really. Not in the ways that mattered. And maybe that’s what hurt the most—the slow erosion of beinghis.Of beingenough.
So when Logan still said nothing, when the silence thickened into something sharp, Adrian’s mind filled the gap with every terrible possibility. Every imagined betrayal. Every truth he had tried not to name.
And suddenly, it became unbearable.
His voice came out cracked and fragile, more exhale than speech. “You go now?” It barely made it into the room. A whisper shaped like a surrender. His eyes stayed forward, fixed on nothing, because he didn’t think he could survive looking at Logan if the answer was yes.
He’d read once—years ago, in a life that felt like it belonged to someone else—that people could die of a broken heart.
He didn’t believe it at first.
But then Logan had marriedher.
And Adrian couldn’t breathe for weeks.
The pain in his chest wasn’t metaphorical. It was pressure, constant and dull, like something sitting on his lungs, waiting. He had nearly gone tothe hospital once, had imagined walking into an ER and saying,someone left me, and I think it’s killing me.
Instead, he’d searched it online at three a.m., curled around a silence that wouldn’t let him sleep. “Can heartbreak cause real pain?” “Heart hurting after breakup?” “Dying of grief?” And somewhere, buried between poorly written articles and medical journals he didn’t fully understand, he found it.
Broken Heart Syndrome.A real thing. Triggered by intense emotion. A surge of stress so brutal it stuns the heart into failing.
He remembered staring at the words, numb and trembling, whispering to no one,so I’m not crazy.
