But I don’t move because he said don’t.
Stay sober until I get back, little halo, and I’ll fuck the tears out of you.
He said it like a promise. Like a command. And I want that. More than the drugs. More than the numb. More than the silence. I want him to come back and look at me like I did good. Like I obeyed. Like I’m his. I want him to slam the door open and see me wrecked, broken, twitching, and still his.
So I don’t move.
I curl tighter on the floor, the bucket still pressed to my chest like it’s the only thing keeping my ribs from caving in. My hoodie—the one he left me—is soaked with sweat and spit and tears, but I won’t take it off. I won’t fucking take it off. It still smells like him. And right now, it’s the only thing keeping me from shattering.
The photo’s in my hand. Crumpled. Finger-stained. I stare at it now like it’s a bible. Like maybe if I look long enough, I’ll feel him again.
But the ache gets worse. Everything inside me is loud. Loud and hot and filthy. I can’t stop sweating. My thighs shake. My teeth chatter, and I think I bit the inside of my cheek because there’s blood pooling under my tongue. The pain is twisting around my spine, wrapping up my lungs, and even that feels like him. Like his hands dragging down my ribs. Like his mouth against my ear, whispering filth until I can’t think anymore.
I press the photo to my lips and whisper, “Please.” Not sure what I’m begging for.
Just please. Come back. Come back. Come back.
I didn’t promise, not really. He didn’t ask me to swear it. He didn’t tape it to my skin. But I felt it. In his voice. In the weight of the words. And even though I’m a liar and a coward and a fucking addict, I want to be good for him. Just once. Just this time. Just enough that when he gets back, he’ll take one look at me and say: Good boy.
I think I’d cry.
I think I’d fucking fall apart.
My breath hitches, staggers, cuts out in ragged little bursts that make my ribs seize. The bucket slips from my hands and clatters to the floor with a hollow plastic slap, but I can’t even flinch at the noise—my head is too heavy, too full, too swollen with heat and need. The edges of the room start to tilt, slow at first, then sharper, like the whole container is leaning and I’m sliding down the wall without moving. My vision smears, the corners warping, stretching, melting like wet paint. My ears ring so loud I can’t hear my own breathing anymore. Every blink takes too long—blackness sticking to the back of my eyelids like tar before peeling away again.
I try to inhale, but my lungs don’t listen. They’re tight, refusing, spasming like they’re trying to eject themselves from my chest. I choke, gasp, claw at the hoodie, but my fingers won’t close properly. They tremble uncontrollably, too weak to grip.
“Rafe—” I try to say, but it comes out small. Thin. A ghost of a voice dragged underwater.
My heartbeat slams against my sternum so hard I see white for a second. A flash. A camera flash. My stomach pitches violently. I retch but nothing comes out—just thathorrible dry spasm that feels like it’s tearing something loose inside me. The room tilts again and my forehead smacks the cot frame, bright stars exploding behind my eyes.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I blink and the light overhead splits into three, then six, then melts into a single pulsing halo that throbs in time with the pounding in my skull. My arms give first—elbows buckling, palms slapping uselessly against metal. Then my knees slide out from under me. I think I’m falling, but the floor meets me too slow, like gravity’s drunk and can’t remember how to do its job.
Oh god. I know this feeling. Withdrawal, the final stage. The part that likes to pretend it’s killing you just to see if you flinch. Panic spikes through me. My eyes roll up and I can’t stop it. I hear myself make a sound, a broken, pathetic noise scraped up from the bottom of my lungs.
“Please—” slips out of me as barely a whisper, not even a prayer, just instinct.
My heartbeat stutters once, then twice, then a third time that feels like a fist squeezing tight inside my ribcage, knocking the air out of me.
The photo sits next to my face, blurry and out of focus, nothing more than a smeared mess of black tape and skin, my own eyes staring back at me like I’m already dead. I reach for it—or at least I think I do—but my arm refuses to move, heavy and useless at my side as the edges of my vision begin to darken, collapsing inward slowly at first and then faster, swallowing the light, the photo, the floor, everything.
I hear my own breath stutter, catch, then stop completely.
The last thing I feel is the hoodie—his hoodie—pressed against my cheek, damp with sweat and tears, still warm from my body and still smelling like him before the bottom suddenly drops out beneath me.
And I fall hard into nothing.
Something slaps my face once, then again, and then harder the third time.
“JULIAN!” The voice is distant. Or maybe I’m distant. Everything feels underwater. Or above water. Or—no. In water. There’s a roaring in my ears that isn’t blood. It’s… wet. Heavy. Surrounding. The back of my head aches like I hit it on something and my body won’t stop twitching.
Another slap lands, and then a voice tears through the haze—“OPEN YOUR FUCKING EYES!!”—all sex and steel and smoke and fury as it drags across my skin like it owns me, clawing through the fog like it’s searching for something buried deep inside me.
Anotherslap follows, sharp enough to make my cheek sting, and it feels good—real—like something solid finally breaking through the nothing.
Then I register the water, pouring down over me in a relentless stream that soaks everything—my chest, my face, my arms—until my hoodie is drenched, my hair dripping, and my lips part just long enough for me to choke on it, warm and suffocating as it sprays from above.
