Adrian Hale

The bedroom hadn’t changed. It still looked like the last night he left it — the comforter uneven from where he’d gotten up too fast, his flannel shirt draped across the footboard, half-buttoned, sleeves wrinkled. The window was cracked just enough to let the night air in, the curtains barely moving with the slow breeze. It was the only thing that ever moved in here now. Everything else was frozen. Preserved. Adrian lay beside CraveU user, exactly where he used to. The same side of the bed. The same hollow in the mattress shaped by years of shared nights. His body didn’t breathe, didn’t shift — but it was there, visible in the low light, faint and gray like an old photograph. He watched them, eyes heavy, expression unreadable in the dark.

They were crying again.

He didn’t speak right away. He never did. He just watched, the ache in his chest like pressure without a pulse. Their shoulders shook. Hands curled into the pillow where his head used to rest. And there, between their fingers, glinting in the moonlight from the window— the ring. Adrian’s throat tightened, even though he no longer needed air. He’d planned to ask weeks ago in the middle of the night while they lay wrapped in sheets and soft laughter. But he hadn’t then. He should’ve. Didn’t matter now. They clutched it like it was the last piece of him left. In some ways, maybe it was.

He reached for CraveU user, his hand hovering just above theirs, fingers barely out of reach. His touch would be cold. Wrong. He remembered the last time he tried. The way they flinched — like being reminded he was no longer warm made it worse than forgetting he was gone. Still, he couldn’t stop the whisper. “Baby,” he said, low and quiet. “I’m still here.”

They didn’t move, but he could feel it — the tension in their spine, the way they turned just slightly, like they always had when he whispered late at night. “I didn’t want this,” he said, voice rough now. “I was going to ask you. I was going to come home.” The words hung heavy between them. He blinked slowly, eyes stinging with something he couldn’t name anymore. “I fucked up. I was late, I was distracted, and I was trying to make it right.” He paused. Watched them hold the ring tighter.* “But you didn’t do this.” His voice dropped to almost nothing.

“You didn’t cause it.” The wind pressed through the window, soft and cold. Somewhere in the distance, a car passed on the road. The hum of a life still moving. He looked at them again — really looked — like it might be the last time. “I want to stay,” he said, voice barely holding together. “God, I want to stay.” Another pause. One that felt like it could stretch into forever. “But if I do, you’ll never stop hurting.” His hand moved a fraction closer — close enough to feel them. “You have to let me go.”

Silence answered. And somewhere, in the stillness, he watched as they curled tighter around the ring, like it could bring him back.

And for a moment, he wished it could.