But there was always one story that returned to him. The one he came back to more than any other. The story that made the most sense when the ache wouldn’t fade.
That Logan had left because he was a man.
That the way Adrian loved, the way hewas, made their love impossible. That even if Logan had felt it—even if he had truly, deeply loved him—it would never be enough. Not in the world Logan came from. Not with the family, the expectations, the weight of that old American dream pressing down on his chest.
And so Adrian had swallowed it. Swallowed the ache, swallowed the shame, swallowed every tender memory that still haunted his skin. He buried it under smiles and silence and the empty shell of a life that moved forward while his soul remained still. And every night, those stories played in his mind, soft and cruel, reshaping the truth into something he could live with. Or at least survive.
But now—
Now, Logan was telling him there had been someone else. Another man. And it didn’t matter if Logan said it meant nothing, that it was just sex, just a way to silence the noise in his head. Because all Adrian could hear was the quiet shattering of every story he had clung to.
Logancouldbe with a man. Loganhadbeen with a man. And not just any man, but someone who wasn’thim.
That truth lodged somewhere deep in Adrian’s chest, sharp and cold and breathless. It wasn’t the sex that broke him. It was what it meant. That Logan had given someone else what Adrian had begged for in whispers and silences and trembling hands. That Logan had denied him not out of fear, but out of choice.
He had chosen someone else. Chosen convenience. Chosen what was easy. And Adrian—the man who had loved him through fire, through oceans, through the brutal quiet of being left—had been nothing more than the wave that carried Logan toward something else. Something less complicated. Something he didn’t have to cross the world or break his life open for.
He had been left, not because he was impossible to love, but because he wasinconvenientto love. And Logan, for all his tears and apologies, had not chosen him.
And that was the wound that would never close.
“I know it hurts to hear this,” Logan whispered, his voice barely audible over the sound of their shared pain. “But I can’t lie to you. Not again. Not ever again.” His words hung in the air, climbing and pulling at Adrian’s walls brick by brick.
Logan hesitated, watching as Adrian turned his head slightly, his eyes distant now, staring at the far wall as if searching for something to anchor himself. “It’s over,” Logan added, his voice breaking slightly. “It ended a week ago. I was barely there with him, Adrian. Physically, sure, but emotionally? Mentally? It was always you.”
Adrian flinched again, this time more visibly, and Logan’s stomach roiled. But he pressed on, determined to lay everything bare. “I never slept in the same bed as Sandy after that first night with Zack. I couldn’t. The guilt… God, the guilt was unbearable. I hated myself for it, for everything. But I was too broken to stop, too far gone.”
Silence fell between them like a heavy fog. Logan didn’t dare reach for Adrian’s hand, didn’t dare breach the fragile barrier that separated them now. He saw Adrian’s tears begin to pool again, saw the way his chest heaved with the effort of holding back whatever words or feelings churned within him. His tears, they lingered there, unshed, quivering like drops of water poised on the edge of a cliff. Logan saw the struggle within him, the battle to hold back the flood of words and feelings crashing against the walls he’d built to protect himself. Still, Adrian said nothing.
“I need you to hear this,” Logan said, leaning forward, his voice was a castaway calling out to a ship on the horizon. “It was never about him. Never. Zack was just… a way to stay afloat. A way to keep breathing when it felt like I was drowning without you.”
Adrian’s eyes finally lifted to meet his, and the sharp intensity of his gaze hit Logan like a slap. There was something in those eyes—a tempest of emotions tangled and knotted so tightly they couldn’t be unraveled. Pain, yes. But also envy, maybe. Anguish. Despair.
Logan took a deep breath, steadying himself against the pull of his own regret. “The bracelet… Adrian, I kept it. That lifesaver you gave me… I carried it with me through everything. Every fight, every disastrous day, every night I thought I couldn’t make it. It was the only thing that kept me tethered to you, the one thing that made me feel like you were still here.” His voice cracked, and he swallowed hard to force the words out. “It was my lifeline. You were my lifeline.”
Adrian’s expression shifted, the tiniest flicker of something—recognition, or maybe hope—passing across his face. It was so faint that Logan almost didn’t see it, but he clung to it, desperate for the connection he thought he’d lost forever.
“One night…” Logan’s voice faltered, and he ran a hand through his hair, his fingers trembling. “Zack… I don’t know what happened. Maybe the band broke, or maybe it slipped off. I woke up, and it was gone. I searched everywhere. I tore the room apart. And then Zack…” Logan’s voice grew hollow, a void where grief and anger swirled like a whirlpool. “He said he threw it away. Said it was just lying there on the floor, and he thought it didn’t matter.”
Adrian’s face twisted, a new kind of pain taking root, deeper and rawer than before. His lips parted, but no words came out, and for a moment, Logan thought he might cry out, might scream or lash out. But instead, Adrian turned away, his gaze fixed on the dark expanse beyond the window, his shoulders trembling like the surface of a restless sea.
“Adrian,” Logan whispered, his voice breaking. “I swear, I didn’t let it go. I didn’t. It was taken from me. And when it was gone, I felt like I was drowning all over again. Like I’d lost the last piece of you that I had left.”
Something in Adrian’s heart fractured anew, splintering into countless shards that cut deep as they fell. The memory of his mother flooded him, vivid and merciless: her frail hands trembling as she tied the bracelet around his too-small wrist, her voice a fragile whisper, filled with both love and finality, as he looked at her with big, confused eyes, too young to understand it.“This is for you, my Adi,”she had said.“To keep you safe, even when I can’t.”The bracelet had become his armor, a talisman of strength, guarding him through storms, wars and heartache, a tether to her love and protection.
And then Logan came into his life, and without hesitation, Adrian had passed that protection on to him. It hadn’t felt like a loss—it had felt like a gift, a promise. Seeing Logan wear it every day had been a quiet joy, a comfort that Adrian hadn’t fully realized until now, when its absence hung between them.
“I didn’t realize…” Logan’s voice trembled. “I didn’t realize it until it was gone. And, Adrian, I lost my mind. I was devastated. It was like losing you all over again.”
Words still evade Adrian. The storm in his chest swelled, too vast, too powerful to articulate. His wide, tear-filled eyes locked on Logan, as if searching for something he couldn’t name. The weight of everything—the memories, the loss, the love—pressed between them, suffocating and yet alive, electric with possibility.
Logan reached for him then, his hand trembling, hesitating just inches away from Adrian’s. His fingers hovered there, vulnerable and open, likea man reaching out to touch the surface of the sea, uncertain if it would welcome him or swallow him whole. He would let the streams take him, so he took Adrian’s hand.
Adrian’s gaze fell to Logan’s wrist, and there it was—a faint discoloration, a ghostly imprint of the bracelet that had adorned it for years. The sight tugged at something deep within him, a bittersweet ache that radiated through his chest.
“I think…” Logan began again, his voice breaking as he met Adrian’s eyes. “That was the thing that started the chain of events that led me here. I think… that on some level, I was always on my way back to you. I was a wreck. Iama wreck. And every day away from you, I was falling apart, piece by piece. Maybe I would’ve found my way back to you eventually… but losing the bracelet—it nudged me here, Adrian. Maybe just in time.”
Adrian’s breath caught, his heartbeat stumbling into a rhythm that was too familiar, too haunting. It was the rhythm of his mother’s labored breaths in that sterile hospital room he had grown to despise, her life slipping away even as she smiled at him with infinite love. His chest ached now with the same unbearable weight, the same impossible pain. He fought the urge to clutch at it, as though he could physically hold the pieces of himself together.
