∞∞∞
Adriel
Early afternoon light had spilled through the window, warm and golden, but Adriel barely noticed it. The light shifted across the floor, the shadows moved and lengthened, the world continued on without him. He sat in the same position he'd been in forhours, knees pulled up, arms wrapped around them, staring at the dark TV like it held answers he couldn't find anywhere else.
His phone sat on the coffee table. Silent. Still. The notifications had stopped hours ago. Everything had blurred together into a gray numbness that felt almost peaceful, if peace could feel like drowning.
He heard the front door open.
The sound registered dimly, somewhere in the background of his consciousness. Jenna, back from the store.
Footsteps approached. Soft at first, then closer. Multiple sets. That registered too, somewhere beneath the fog. Jenna must have brought someone. A friend. Chris. He didn't care. Didn't want to see anyone, didn't want to talk, didn't want to do anything except keep existing in this gray space where nothing could reach him.
The footsteps stopped.
He should look up. He knew he should look up. It was rude to ignore people, even when you felt like this, even when the effort of moving your head felt like climbing a mountain. But he couldn't make himself do it. Couldn't make himself care.
Then Jenna's voice: "Adriel."
Something in her tone made him look. She was standing a few feet away, her expression careful, worried. And right behind her…
Landen.
Adriel shot off the sofa.
He stumbled, his legs unsteady from hours of disuse, nearly going down before he caught himself on the arm of the couch.His hands started shaking immediately, a fine tremor that he couldn't control.
"Get out!" he shouted. The words tore out of him, raw and desperate. His voice cracked on them, broke apart. He pointed at the door, hand shaking so badly he could barely keep it raised. "Get out of here! Now!"
His eyes found Jenna. The betrayal there was sharp enough to cut; sharp enough to draw blood, if betrayal could bleed. She had brought him here. She had broughthimhere, after everything, after Adriel had told her everything, after she'd held him while he cried and told him he was enough, that he deserved better, that he would get through this.
She had brought Landen here.
Jenna stepped closer. Her hands came up, palms out.Her face was calm, but her eyes were urgent.
"Just hear him out," she said. "Please."
Adriel shook his head. Backed up a step. His legs hit the edge of the coffee table and he stumbled, catching himself on the wall.
"It's not what you think," Jenna continued. "Trust me. Just hear him out."
She held out a phone.
His eyes dropped to it; Landen's phone, the same one he'd seen a hundred times, the one with the small crack in the corner of the screen from when he'd dropped it last month. An email exchange was already open.
"Read it," Jenna said. "Please."
Adriel looked between them. Jenna's face, pleading. Landen's face; and that was the thing that made him pause, that made something flicker beneath the rage.
Landen looked wrecked.
Not the composed, polished man from the office. Not the confident Dom who had taken him apart and put him back together. This man looked like he hadn't slept in days. His clothes were rumpled. His hair was disheveled, falling across his forehead in a way that should have been endearing but instead looked desperate. Dark circles bruised the skin beneath his eyes. His whole body was tense.
He looked like Adriel felt.
Adriel took the phone. His hands were shaking so badly he almost dropped it. He steadied them against his thighs, forced himself to focus on the screen.
Dear Landen,
