The silence didn’t answer. It just breathed around me—constant, indifferent—as if the world was already learning to live without him.
I curled on my side, naked and shaking, the sheets tangling around my feet. My tears soaked the pillow until the scent of him faded beneath salt and grief.
My eyelids grew heavy, my body too exhausted to keep fighting. The last thing I felt before sleep dragged me under was the imagined brush of his hand against my hair.
The bed dipped behind me, a familiar weight shifting the mattress. I didn’t turn right away—I was afraid if I did, he’d vanish. But then a hand slid over my waist, smooth and solid, and the breath caught in my throat.
“Hey,” he whispered against the back of my neck, his voice sleep-soft, the way it always was in the quiet before morning.
I turned, and there he was—Eli. Warm skin, a drowsy smile, and eyes that saw straight through me. The moonlight spilled over his shoulder, silvering every inch of him until he looked almost too perfect to touch.
“You’re supposed to be resting,” he murmured, brushing his thumb across my cheek.
“So are you,” I whispered back.
He laughed, low and easy, and the sound rippled through me like a heartbeat I’d forgotten I still had. His mouth found mine—gentle at first, then deeper, more certain, until the world narrowed to the heat of him, the scent of skin and clean linen and everything we used to be.
His cock pressed into mine, hard and hot. Warm breath ghosted my cheek. Time disappeared, obligation dissolved. There was only him and me and sweet, hot friction and rawneed. Eli’s body demanded satisfaction, and neither of us was leaving this bed until we’d found it.
We moved together as we had a thousand times, bodies remembering what minds had almost lost. His breath tangled with mine, soft curses and promises pressed between kisses. Every touch said what we’d stopped saying aloud:I love you. I’m sorry. Don’t go.
When he whispered my name, it broke something open inside me. I clung to him, desperate to stay in that suspended moment where nothing hurt, where we still had forever.
And then?—
The light changed. The warmth faded. The sheets cooled beneath my hands.
I woke to an empty bed; the lack of sound so absolute it roared in my ears. The pillow beside me was still damp with tears. For a heartbeat, I could still feel him—the weight of his hand, the press of his lips—but it slipped away like breath on glass.
I buried my face in the hollow he used to sleep in and sobbed until my body gave out again, whispering into the dark, “Come back. Please just come back.”
When I finally lifted my head, my chest felt hollow, scraped clean. I rolled onto my back and blinked toward the window, gray light bleeding through the blinds. Panic clawed at me. I reached for my phone on the nightstand.10:07 p.m.
“Shit.” My voice was raw. “Four hours? Jesus Christ.”
I swung my legs over the side of the bed and nearly lost my balance. Still naked from the shower, towel twisted somewhere on the floor, I dragged on my pants, stumbled, and trippedagain. “Goddammit.” I didn’t even know who I was mad at—myself, the world, time. All of it.
I had to get back to the hospital. I needed to be there when he woke up.Ifhe woke up.
I made it halfway to the door before freezing. What if Eli opened his eyes and I had nothing for him? Nothing to hold, nothing that saidI’m still here. I didn’t give up.
I turned back, grabbed a duffel from the closet, and started throwing things in—laptop, charger, a clean pair of sweats, deodorant. Then I stood there, staring into the bag as if it could answer me. There wasn’t a damn thing in this house that could make up for what I’d done.
I crossed to Eli’s nightstand and yanked open the drawer. Chapstick. Receipts. A pen. And then, at the very back, something small and brown caught the light.
The bracelet.
I sank down hard on the edge of the bed; the air leaving my lungs all at once. The grapevine had dried to a brittle twist, the gold wire dull from time and sweat. I turned it in my hands, and memory flooded back in a wave.
Our first anniversary. The Vineyard. We’d taken a long weekend, just the two of us, a honeymoon a year late. Three days of lazy mornings and too much wine, wandering between the vines with his hand in mine.
That second night, after midnight, we’d snuck out to the fields—barefoot, half-drunk, and stupid in love. He laughed when I pulled him down into the grass. I could still see him there in the moonlight, all skin and smile, twisting into me as I stripped him bare. The moon shone silver on his skin, makinghim look otherworldly. My lips closed around his cock, and he whispered,Make it last. Make it good.
I could still feel the dream of him on my skin. His warmth. His weight. The slow, inevitable pull that always drew us back together, no matter how far apart we drifted. I couldn’t wait to slide inside him, and when I did, Eli clung to me like our first time, wanting to get closer, begging for more, bathing my face in kisses. I whispered his name against his throat, and he arched toward me, whispering mine back like a prayer. His ass was a tight, hot glove that milked the pleasure from my body in minutes.
His fingers curled at the back of my neck, guiding me closer until our breaths tangled, until I forgot where I ended and he began.
After, we’d laid there wrapped together, trading secrets we never had time for during the weeks I was always gone.
