Eli shifted. Once. Twice. A long exhale. Then, quieter than a confession?—
“Adrian…”
I didn’t move. Didn’t answer. My name hung there, resonating in the air between us.
“I—” He stopped, swallowed, and tried again. “I need you.”
The words sank in slowly, traveling through fog before reaching me.
I turned my head toward him in the dark. “Your leg?”
He sighed, then softly—“No.”
Eli hesitated. I heard the rough scrape of his breath. “I need…”
The rest of it broke apart before it ever left his lips.
I sat up, fumbled for the lamp again, and the light flooded the space between us.
He was half-turned toward me, eyes down, shoulders tight. His hands twisted the edge of the blanket.
Understanding hit like a fault line opening. The quiet violence of being needed and chosen was equal parts ache and terror. Eli wasn’t asking for help with pain. He was asking forcontact. For something only I could give.
I didn’t move at first. Just stared as it sank in. The silence became a living thing.
Eli’s throat worked. “Forget it,” he blurted. “I shouldn’t have?—”
“Hey.” My voice came out rough. “Don’t do that.”
He looked up. For a second, I saw past the frustration and the restlessness. He looked scared. The simple act of wanting me had become something dangerous.
I reached across the space between us, slowly, giving him every chance to pull back. My hand found his wrist, warm and trembling.
“Tell me what you need.”
He swallowed hard. “I don’t know. Just—something to make it stop.”
My chest tightened. “The noise?”
He nodded, barely. “The noise. The thoughts. Loneliness. Everything.”
I shifted closer. “Okay.”
His breath hitched when I brushed my thumb along the inside of his wrist, then up, tracing the faint map of his veins I’d once memorized. His eyes fluttered shut.
For a moment, that was enough—the touch, the permission, the small surrender of him leaning in.
I eased him back against the pillows, careful of his leg and his ribs. His fingers fisted in my shirt, afraid I’d vanish if he let go.
This wasn’t sex. Not yet. It wasn’t even about wanting, not the way it used to be. It was about needing to exist in the same space again. To prove the world hadn’t taken everything.
I pressed my lips to his shoulder, breathing him in, letting the warmth of our shared breaths rewrite every promise I’d ever broken.
“You don’t have to do anything,” I whispered, looking into his eyes. “Just breathe.”
His lips parted, brushing mine on an exhale. That tiny, accidental touch burned me.
Eli made a sound—somewhere between a sigh and a plea—and the world narrowed to that moment.
