He turned the shower on as hot as it would go. Waited for the steam to rise. Then he stepped under the spray fully clothed, not thinking, needing to feel something other than this.
The heat soaked through his shirt, his pants, his skin. He stood there for a moment, water streaming down his face, and then he stripped quickly, hands shaking so badly he could barely work the buttons. He peeled the wet clothes away, dropped them in a heap on the tile, and stood under the spray with nothing left to hide behind.
The water hit his skin hard. Relentless. Hot enough to turn his flesh pink.
Something in him finally gave.
He slid down the tiled wall, his back scraping against it, until he was sitting on the floor of the shower with his knees pulled to his chest and his arms wrapped tight around himself. The water pounded down on him from above, soaking his hair, running into his eyes, mixing with the tears he couldn't stop.
He cried until it hurt. Until his throat burned and his chest ached and his head throbbed with the pressure of it. The sounds that came out of him were ugly; broken sobs that he couldn't control, couldn't muffle, couldn't do anything but let happen. He pressed his forehead against his knees and cried into the space between his arms and his chest, the water swallowing most of the noise but not all of it.
Every thought looped back to the same place.
He'd known this would happen. He'd known, somewhere deep, that this was too good to be true. That wanting something too much was the surest way to lose it. He'd told himself that story so many times over the years, had built his whole life around its sad, familiar shape, and still,still, he'd let himself believe.
His phone buzzed somewhere outside the bathroom.
Once. Twice. Again.
He heard it through the rush of water, a faint vibration against whatever surface it was resting on. He knew without looking who it was. Landen's name on the screen, bright and insistent, calling and calling and calling.
He didn't answer. He couldn't. The idea of hearing Landen's voice right now, of hearing that familiar tone, pretending like nothing had happened, felt unbearable. Like it would finish breaking whatever fragile pieces were left.
The buzzing continued.
Stop. Start. Stop.
The silence that followed felt just as loud.
∞∞∞
Adriel didn't sleep.
He had left the shower eventually; the water had run cold, shocking him back into his body, and he'd turned it off and stumbled out into the steam-filled room. He'd dried himself mechanically, moving through the motions. He'd made it to his bed and collapsed there, wet hair soaking into the pillow, eyes open and fixed on nothing.
The thoughts didn't stop.
They circled and circled, a carousel of shame and humiliation and the same images playing over and over.
You're so stupid,the voice in his head whispered.
You're so fucking stupid. How could you believe it? How could you let yourself believe it?
He didn't have an answer.
When exhaustion finally dragged him under, it was shallow and restless, punctured by half-dreams and jolts of panic. He'd drift for a while, somewhere between waking and sleeping, and then some image would surface, and he'd jerk awake, heart pounding, gasping for air.
Then the cycle would start again.
The next morning passed in a blur.
He didn't leave his room. Didn't eat. Didn't check his phone. The device sat on his nightstand, silent, its screen dark, and he couldn't bring himself to touch it. Couldn't bring himself to look at whatever messages waited there. Couldn't bear to read Landen's words, whatever they were; explanations, excuses, apologies, confessions. None of it mattered. None of it could undo the damage.
He lay curled on his side, the curtains drawn tight against the daylight, the world reduced to the quiet hum of the apartment and the weight in his chest that wouldn't lift.
It pressed down on him constantly. A physical thing, heavy and suffocating. He breathed around it, through it, but it never went away. It was there when he closed his eyes and there when he opened them, there in the silence and in the occasional sounds from the rest of the apartment; Jenna moving around, the TV turning on, the faint smell of coffee.
Sometime in the afternoon, there was a knock on his bedroom door. Soft at first. Tentative. Then firmer.
