Logan stepped aside. A ghost of a smile flickered on his lips, unsteady, a flame in the wind. He couldn’t help it—beneath all the uncertainty, a fragile thread of happiness coiled through his chest, tugging at the corners of his heart. Seeing Adrian here, standing in front of him, felt surreal. He held on to the hope that this wasn’t just a fleeting echo of the past but the first step toward something real, something mended.
Adrian moved into the room, his presence a quiet thunder, filling the space with a gravity that seemed to pull the air taut. His eyes swept over the room—a polished expanse of muted tones, sharp lines, and gleaming surfaces. It was perfect in the way hotel rooms often were: clean, curated, and empty. When Adrian’s gaze returned to Logan, there was a stillness in the air, thick and suffocating. Logan closed the door, his back resting against it as if bracing himself against the weight of what came next.
“You wanted to talk,” Adrian said, his voice steady but distant. “Let’s talk.”
“Yeah, do you—” Logan began making his way to the middle of the room, but the words faltered when Adrian raised a hand, shaking his head.
“I waited,” Adrian’s voice cracked with the rawness of the memory. He stayed near the door, his posture tense, as though he might bolt at any moment. “When I woke up that morning and you weren’t there, I thought… I thought maybe you’d gone to get coffee or something. You know? I didn’t panic. The room looked the same. Your clothes were still scattered on the chairs, your board was leaning against the wall, just where you’d left it.” He paused, exhaling a shaky breath. “So, I waited. I stayed in bed and waited for you to come back.”
Logan lowered himself onto the back of the couch, his knees feeling weak under the weight of Adrian’s words. He couldn’t look away from him, couldn’t do anything but listen.
“But you didn’t show up,” Adrian continued, his voice laced with hurt that seemed to ring in the room. “So, I called. Over and over. And there was no answer. But even then, I didn’t think you’d left, maybe your phone was silenced, and you were on your way back, right? I couldn’t believe it. Because…” Adrian’s voice faltered, and he swallowed hard. “Because the memory book I gave you was still there, on the nightstand. And you wouldn’t have left it behind. Not something that meant so much to both of us. Right?”
Logan closed his eyes briefly, the sting of tears burning behind his lids. He couldn’t speak. When he opened his eyes, Adrian was still standing by the door, his arms crossed over his chest, as if holding himself together.
“Adrian,” Logan started, his voice rough. “I—”
“No,” Adrian cut him off, his tone sharp but trembling. “Let me finish.”
The air between them was heavy, thick with the kind of tension that blooms from wounds left too long to fester. It was a quiet ache, raw and unhealed, the edges of their shared past still sharp and exposed. These weren’t scars—scars were the marks of healing, of skin knit back together stronger than before. No, these were open wounds, tender and vulnerable, left to catch the sting of every passing breeze, to risk infection and rot. Always exposed, always on the verge of breaking open.
Logan hovered in a space that was neither standing nor sitting, his body half-perched on the back of the couch, as if suspended between the instinct to flee and the desperate need to stay. His hands were clasped tightly together, knuckles pale and straining, as though holding them so wouldkeep the fragile pieces of him from scattering around the room. His breath came shallow, uneven, the kind of breathing that accompanies a drowning man seconds before surrendering to the deep. Adrian remained still, his knuckles turning white from gripping himself tightly.
“And I called again,” Adrian continued, his voice trembling but firm, the emotion clawing its way to the surface. “Still no answer. So I got out of bed, and I started noticing things—things that were different. Your board shorts and wetsuit were still in the bathroom, Logan. Your toothbrush, too. But your bag? Your computer? Gone.”
Adrian laughed bitterly, the sound sharp and hollow. “I kept calling. I kept texting. I became quite anxious when I saw our mugs still on the table, which clearly showed that you didn’t go to get coffee. So I called again and again. And then you replied. Finally! You told me you were leaving. Just like that. Out of nowhere. And I thought—no, Ihoped,Iprayed—that it was some kind of joke. Because how could it not be? It didn’t make sense. Nothing about it made sense.”
Logan’s breath caught as Adrian’s vivid recounting drew him back to the past, plunging him into the chaos he had sparked. In his mind’s eye, he visualized everything—the confusion, disbelief, and growing panic.
“When I got your text,” Adrian went on, his voice breaking, “telling me you’d suddenly decided to go home, I panicked. I kept texting, kept calling, because I thought maybe… maybe something was wrong. Something must have happened to you. And then I tried again.” Adrian’s voice cracked, his shoulders slumping as tears slipped down his face. “And again. Until finally, I realized I couldn’t get through to you because you had blocked me. Youblockedme.” Adrian closed his eyes, his breathing uneven as he tried to steady himself.
Logan felt the sting of tears atthe corners of his own eyes, but he couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.
“And you know what?” Adrian said, his voice rising slightly, a sharp edge to his tone. “I couldn’t believe it. It took metwenty-seven messages—twenty-seven!—and at least fifteen phone calls before it even registered that you’d done it. Because I couldn’t believe that you would block me, Logan. Not after everything. I thought, ‘No, there’s no way.’ Not after what we shared, not after—”
Did Adrian seek the elusive words that could capture the essence of the tapestry they wove together over four fleeting months? Was he in search of phrases to immortalize the precious days they shared? That profound heart-to-heart on the cliff, those two treasured last days in the lavish hotel? The final night they shared, as Logan gave himself completely to Adrian? To the whispered moments in between—soft late nights and tender dawns, the playful dance among the waves, their bodies entangled in sheets, or the thrill of chasing their next adventure?
Adrian shook his head, his jaw tightening as his voice dropped again. “So I did the stupidest thing I could do. I got into a cab and went straight to the airport. And by the time I got there, you were gone. Gone, Logan. I begged security, I begged airport staff, I fucking had the entire place on its feet, trying to figure out where you’d gone, why you’d left. They showed me the footage. They showed me you were waiting, you were boarding, like it was just another day for you.”
Logan’s tears traced silent trails down his face, each drop carrying the heavy weight of Adrian’s anguish. He had long imagined the pain he’d inflicted, but witnessing it, immersing himself in its depths, was an entirely different kind of torment.Every heartbreaking detail etched itself into his memory, a permanent scar of that moment.
“I was sure something had happened to you,” Adrian said, his voice softer now, breaking around the edges, curling around his lovely accent. “Because I couldn’t believe… I wouldn’t believe… that you’d justleaveme. Not after that night. Not after everything. So the only explanation I could come up with was that you were in trouble, that someone made you leave, because I thought I knew you, Logan.”
Adrian stopped, his eyes fixed on the floor as his chest rose and fell with the effort of keeping himself together.
“Adrian—”
“Please don’t,” Adrian begged, his voice barely above a whisper. “I need to say this. If you talk, if I hear your voice, I won’t be able to. And I need to.”
Logan nodded, swallowing hard. His hands gripped the edge of the couch as though it were the only thing grounding him, but his whole body ached to move, to close the space between them. Adrian’s tears fell in silent streaks, carving pathways down his face, and Logan felt as if each one was a blade cutting into his soul.
He wanted to stand, to reach out, to pull Adrian into his arms and beg for forgiveness with every ounce of his being. But he didn’t. Not yet. He stayed where he was, waiting, because he knew that right now, Adrian needed to finish. And Logan owed him that. At the very least, he owed him to listen to the final notes of their love story.
“I waited in that room for three weeks,” Adrian said, his voice raw, shaking, the words slicing through the space between them. “Three. Fucking. Weeks. I was sure you were going to come back. I… refused to believe you’d leave me alone, Logan. Every single day you didn’t come back, it felt like a knife to my gut. It wasn’t just emotional—my hearthurt. Physically hurt. And there was nothing I could do to stop it.”
Adrian paused, his hands trembling at his sides as he stared at the floor. The silence was suffocating, broken only by the distant hum of traffic outside and the faint rhythm of their breathing. Logan swallowed hard, his throat dry, but he didn’t dare interrupt.
“It hurt so much, Logan,” Adrian continued, his voice dropping to a whisper, as though the memories were too heavy to bear. “I couldn’t get through the days. I barely left the room. I was afraid—afraid I might miss you if you came back. But you didn’t. Not for your board, not for your camera, not for me.Not for me.” The words choked out of him.
