The sounds that filled the stillness became a heartbeat I could sync to, a fragile reminder that my body wasn’t gone yet. Somewhere beneath the fog, I felt Adrian’s lips against my hand, a soft promise.
The dark rippled. His voice kept talking, softer now, breaking apart into static, into pieces I couldn’t hold.
“…miss you… love you… please…”
Each syllable burned like fire against my skin.
Memories flared, shards of our life.
Our fifth anniversary, drunk on laughter and memories, champagne dribbling down my chin, Adrian’s tongue and lips tracing it away. The feel of him—warm, alive, reckless in his devotion.
Fresh from the shower, dropping my towel to shake my ass for him, and Adrian dropping to his knees to worship me. That look. Focused. Wanting. Like I was something to be held, notrushed past. My fingers in his hair, and the heat of it still lingering long after everything else blurred.
The ninth floor of the hospital, quiet corridors where we’d held hands in secret rebellion against the career that tried to break us. The night I visited him during a residency overnight shift, and blew him in the vacant patient room he was crashing in for a few hours of rest.
And just before the darkness swallowed me again, I heard his tears, quiet at first, as if he was trying to hide them. But they broke through, rough and uneven, every breath hitching on my name. I felt his grief, his fear, the hollow sound of it tainting the air between us.
It was poison that sank beneath my skin, sharp and burning.
I wanted to reach for him, to wipe the tears away, to promise that I was still here. But I couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. All I could do was feel.
Every sob pressed deeper, threading itself into my pulse until it became mine too. His pain, his pleading, his love—I carried it with me into the dark.
If I couldn’t hold his hand, I’d hold that instead. And I’d use it to find my way back.
For the first time since everything went quiet, my heart remembered what it was supposed to do.
It stirred.
Once.
Twice.
A stutter, a spark, a beginning.
The dark folded me in, gentle and suffocating at once. Icould still feel his hand—somewhere far off—his thumb rubbing small, frantic circles against my skin. It anchored me. Pulled at me.
I wanted to go to him. God, Ineededto go to him.
My mouth wouldn’t move, but my mind screamed.I’m still here, Adrian. I’m right here.
The darkness pushed back, thick and endless, but I pushed harder. I felt my pulse stutter again, a weak echo that somehow felt like hope.
He thought I couldn’t hear him.
He thought it was too late.
But it wasn’t.
I wouldn’t let it be.
I’ll stay,I told him, though the words made no sound.You hear me? I’ll stay.
Images bloomed behind my eyes: the filthy texts we used to send when we lived on campus. Adrian jacking me off under the table of a mostly empty library on a holiday weekend while I bit my pencil to stay quiet. Every fragment of joy, every small wonder we’d built together, surged forward.
I have to go back. I have to.
They shimmered, faded, reformed. Little ghosts of the life we almost lost.
