"You'll Learn"
(Five Years Later)
Rain ticked gently against the windows like patient fingers.
Adrian sat across from Dr. Rainer, his posture straighter than it had been. His hands were still, folded on his lap, but the tremble in his left shoulder and hand was still there, a whisper of what the stroke had left behind.
Dr. Rainer leaned back slightly, one ankle crossed over the other. She always gave him time. Never rushed. The silence between her questions felt like a held breath, waiting for the shape of Adrian's truth.
He exhaled.
"I had this...memory," Adrian said, his voice rougher these days, his vowels sometimes slipping. "From when I was nineteen. Just… leaving someone after sex. They were being kind. Sweet, even. And I tore them down. I remember the look on his face."
Dr. Rainer tilted her head. "And how did you feel, remembering that?"
He thought. "Like I was watching someone else. But also...like I'd known for a long time that that was me. I felt nothing back then. I looked at myself in the mirror, and I remember thinking...that I'd finally become the thing I needed to survive."
Dr. Rainer was silent for a moment, her pen resting idle over the page. "Do you believe that's still who you are?"
Adrian didn't answer at first. He stared at the carpet, jaw tense. Finally, he said, "I think…I built myself out of armor. A whole person...made of mirrors and masks. I didn't want to be touched. Or left," he said, pausing. "No one leaves someone who doesn't care."
Dr. Rainer nodded gently. "That's not untrue. But no one can love someone who doesn't care, either."
Adrian's throat tightened.
Dr. Rainer's tone remained quiet, but her next question landed with care. "And Bobby?"
The name made the room shift. A slow inhalation of pain. Adrian looked out the window, as if the world could somehow answer for him.
"I don't want to talk about him," he said.
She let the words rest. "You've said that before."
"I like to be consistent," Adrian replied, though there was no bite in his voice anymore. Only weariness.
He stared at the books behind her. He always did this, avoid eye contact when the conversation grew too close.
Dr. Rainer didn't push yet. She let the silence breathe. "Well, you brought up Bobby last session. Would you be willing to stay there a little longer today?"
Adrian's jaw flexed. "I shouldn't have."
"Why not?"
He exhaled a bitter laugh. "Because I sound insane. Because you'll tell me I was projecting. That it wasn't real. That I was confusing his presence for salvation."
Her eyes didn't waver. "Would that be untrue?"
Adrian shifted in his chair, discomfort crawling over his skin. "You're going to tell me what I felt wasn't love."
"No. Because we already know it wasn't," she said. "I'm going to ask you why it felt like love."
Adrian looked up now. There was a quiet in his face that hadn't been there before, like the wind had gone out of him. "I was drowning," he admitted. "Trapped inside my body. Nick and I were struggling. He'd stopped looking at me the way he used to…but Bobby did. He still looked."
Dr. Rainer leaned forward slightly. "And what did he see, Adrian?"
"I don't know," Adrian whispered. "Someone worth rescuing?"
She tilted her head. "Or someone who reminded him of himself?"
Adrian's mouth tightened.
"You and Bobby," she continued softly, "share a wound. But when two wounded people try to dress each other's injuries, often all they do is reopen old cuts. What you mistook for intimacy may have been recognition. And recognition, for someone starved of affection, feels like love."
Adrian closed his eyes. "He...made it easy. With Bobby, I could be..."
"Cruel?" Dr. Rainer interrupted before nodding slowly. "He'd excuse your behavior. Make himself blind to your vulnerability," she added, pausing briefly. "But here's the problem, Adrian. Bobby didn't consent to be your redeemer. He was young. He was searching for safety, not seduction."
Adrian flinched. "I never seduced him."
"That's a lie," she stated. "You anchored yourself to his attention. To his hunger. That kind of need can feel as urgent and consuming as desire. But it's not the same. And when it comes from someone older, someone who should know better, someone who was supposed to care for him...it becomes betrayal."
Adrian's voice broke as he whispered, "I didn't mean to betray him."
"I know you didn't," she said. "But you did."
He looked away, lips trembling.
"Adrian," she continued, gently, "what do you think Bobby needed most from you?"
His mouth opened. Closed. Finally, the truth tumbled out, raw and hoarse.
"A father."
Dr. Rainer's voice cracked only slightly. "And instead, he got a man who didn't know how to love without turning it into a transaction. You wanted to be wanted. He wanted to be safe."
Adrian didn't speak. His breath had gone shallow. A tremor ran through his arms. "I don't know how to fix this," he said.
Dr. Rainer folded her hands. "Start by mourning it. Mourn the idea of what you thought it was. Let go of the version of yourself you keep insisting you were in that moment. And then, when you've accepted that, you apologize. Without hope for forgiveness," she added, inhaling gently. "Because Adrian, it might not come. Ever."
Adrian's face crumpled. He stared at the floor, the memory of Bobby's eyes the last time they saw each other, angry, broken, disillusioned, playing on a loop behind his eyelids. Adrian's fingers dug into his palms. "Because...I failed him," he whispered.
Dr. Rainer sat forward, just slightly.
"Say that again."
Adrian looked down at his hands. "I failed him. Worse than I ever failed anyone."
His voice broke then, cracked at the edge, soft and sorrowful. "He didn't deserve any of it. He was just…a boy. Looking for a father. And I gave him...me."
Silence.
Dr. Rainer said, "You've said before that you didn't believe in regret."
"I didn't," Adrian replied. "Until he left." Something fragile lived in the corners of Adrian's face now, in the soft fold of his mouth, in the way his eyes shimmered but never quite spilled. "I see him...in my dreams," he said. "The way he used to look at me. Like I was the whole damn sky. And then I wake up and remember the way he looks at me now. Like I'm a curse."
A long pause.
Adrian met Dr. Rainer's gaze. "If I could take it back," he said. "I would."
She nodded, her voice warm. "You can't undo the past, Adrian. But you can learn from it. And you can choose, every day, not to become the man you built yourself to be."
Adrian nodded. His voice was hoarse. "I don't...know how to be anything else."
"You'll learn."
*
(Present Time)
Nick found Adrian curled at the top of the stairs, crumpled like a wounded animal. The light from the foyer below cut up through the banister, slicing Adrian's face in thin golden stripes across the tremble in his jaw.
"Well," Nick said softly, already kneeling beside him. "Morning…"
Adrian didn't respond right away. His fingers clutched the floor as though it might anchor him, but there was no anchor in this house anymore. Only driftwood and distance.
"I tried calling," Adrian rasped. His voice was hoarse, strained. "You didn't hear me."
Nick took in the sheen of sweat on Adrian's skin, the smudges of dust clinging to his arms, the bloodless tightness around his mouth. He bent down further, hooking his arms gently under Adrian's shoulders. "Come on. Let's get you off the floor."
"I fell," Adrian muttered as Nick lifted him, his body hanging with helpless weight. "Rolled over and the chair was too far."
Nick didn't respond. He simply held him tighter and began carrying him down the hallway. Adrian didn't fight, but his fingers curled into the fabric of Nick's shirt with quiet desperation.
Back in the bedroom, Nick laid him onto the mattress as gently as if he were placing a wounded bird in its nest. Adrian turned his face away, swallowing something hard in his throat.
"Where's Bobby?" he asked, too casual.
Nick paused. "He went for a swim."
Adrian's eyes flicked to the window, the shoreline just visible through the morning haze. His voice faltered. "I need to talk to him."
Nick exhaled slowly. He pulled the covers over Adrian's lap, adjusting the pillow behind his back. "You will," he said, standing again. "Later. The nurses will be here soon. They'll help you with your bath."
Adrian's eyes snapped back to Nick's, as if looking for something. A tell. A trace. A guilt. But Nick gave him nothing. Just that quiet, practiced calm. Not cold, but distant. Like someone who's already left the room, even while standing in it.
Adrian looked away again, jaw tightening, nostrils flaring slightly. The bed creaked as he shifted, or tried to. "Don't…leave me like that again," he whispered, his voice half-swallowed by the linens.
Nick didn't say anything. Instead, he walked to the corner of the room, opened the drawer, and pulled out Adrian's medication. He filled a glass of water from the carafe by the bedside and set both gently on the nightstand.
He turned back to Adrian, met his eyes for a long, unreadable second, and said quietly, "Try to rest."
Then he stepped out of the room, closing the door behind him.
*
The sound of water echoed softly in the tiled room, the slosh of warmth ladled from a bowl, the muted rustle of fabric being drawn aside. Adrian sat slumped in his chair, naked except for the thin towel draped across his lap, already damp from the slow, practiced motions of the nurses' sponges. He kept his eyes on the ceiling, on the faint crack where some long-forgotten contractor had failed to seal the plaster. It was easier to focus on that imperfection than on the hands that touched him. Or on the absence of sensation from the waist down. Or the bitter acid of humiliation crawling up his throat like bile.
"Almost done, Mr. Parker," one of the nurses said, her voice as gentle as her touch, but far away.
He didn't answer.
They were kind, these women, always professional, always speaking in hushed tones as if to grant him the dignity that no longer belonged to him. But it made it worse. The way they handled his body. Like he was both man and relic.
The sponge glided over his thigh, the inner hollow of his hip, and then nothing, just the mockery of flesh that would not respond. A slab of himself, robbed of its purpose. Of its power. Once, he'd been fire. Lust incarnate. He had walked into rooms and left people breathless, desiring him, fearing him, tethered to the gravity of his confidence. That man was gone now, dead, yet maddeningly conscious.
He swallowed, blinking up at the ceiling crack.
He wondered if Nick had looked at Bobby that way, tonight, earlier, on the deck, or down by the sea when they first met. If Nick's eyes had softened for him and Adrian just hadn't noticed. If Bobby, beautiful and volatile, had curled against Nick the way Adrian used to, months ago. Did Nick kiss him like that right away? Did Bobby let him?
"You're quiet today," the older nurse said kindly, drying his arms with a thick towel.
Adrian forced a smile, brittle and thin. "Didn't sleep well."
A lie. But everything he said these days was either a lie or a deflection. Because the truth was this: the boy who used to idolize him now wanted nothing from him. Not his approval, not his anger. Not even his forgiveness. Bobby had shoved him to the side, quietly, without a war, like one closes a door to a room no longer needed.
And Nick.
Nick was gone in another way. Still there, physically, cooking, cleaning, helping him move from chair to bed. But the man who used to ache for his touch, who used to watch Adrian like he was made of starlight and danger, that man had faded into distance. Into detachment. And in his place, a stranger who wore gentleness like clothes. A kindness that wasn't rooted in love, but in resignation.
"Would you like to shave today, Mr. Parker?"
He blinked, lifting his gaze. "No. Leave the beard."
She nodded, patting him dry with care, draping the robe across his shoulders.
He stared ahead, silent again.
He couldn't explain the feeling: this mixture of envy and grief. The aching shame of needing help to wipe his own skin, the fury that Bobby and Nick now lived in a world beyond his reach. He could no longer seduce his way into comfort. No longer intimidate his way into control. They didn't fear him. Not anymore.
And if they no longer feared him, what was left?
The nurse began buttoning his robe, speaking softly about the rest of the day's schedule, but Adrian barely heard her. They wheeled him back into the bedroom with the same quiet deference, the same muted voices and gentle hands that only deepened his rage. The wheels of the chair creaked, a mechanical murmur that reminded him with each turn: you're here, and this is who you are now.
The sun had shifted, and the room was filled with gold. For a moment, it almost looked beautiful. But Adrian didn't see it. Not really. The warmth of it only made his skin crawl. It painted the space in tones too lovely for a scene so vile. He could still hear their laughter, Nick and Bobby's, echoing from downstairs. He imagined them in the kitchen, maybe cleaning up their late meal or standing by the open fridge, fingers brushing against each other's as they reached for the same bottle of water. Or maybe they were closer. Upstairs. In Nick's study. Their bodies, Nick, and his son, fucking beneath sheets he once called his own.
Adrian gritted his teeth.
"Easy," one of the nurses said as she unfastened the brakes on the wheelchair. "We're just going to help you into bed now."
Her voice was calm. Kind. Patronizing.
And that was enough to make Adrian finally snap.
"Don't talk to me like I'm a child," he barked, his voice rising, coarse and furious. "I'm not deaf. I'm not stupid. Just put me in the fucking bed and get out!"
The nurses stiffened but continued their work. They had seen tantrums before. They didn't flinch. One of them glanced at the other with a barely perceptible nod, protocol for escalation. Adrian didn't care.
"I said get your hands off me!"
His elbow flailed, catching the edge of the nightstand, sending a glass of water tumbling to the floor. It shattered, cold droplets and shards spreading across the floor.
"You think I don't know what's happening in this house?" he roared, eyes wild, spittle catching in the corners of his mouth. "You think I don't see it? He's fucking my son. My..." His voice broke, his throat closing around the word. "He's mine!"
"Mr. Parker, please..."
"Get the hell out! Both of you!"
"Sir, we need you to calm down."
"Fuck calm!"
His body strained against itself, muscles twitching uselessly, arms shaking with rage as his dead legs sat beneath him like someone else's. He wanted to hit something, to punch a wall, to tear the entire house down with his hands. He wanted Nick to hear him. To feel him. He wanted Bobby to remember who he was.
But his body betrayed him again.
And in his fury, he felt the sharp sting of a needle in his arm. He looked down. The older nurse was holding the syringe with steady hands. Adrian opened his mouth to protest, but the word never came.
The rage dulled. The colors began to bleed into each other. The walls bent slightly, warping like heat rising from pavement. His tongue went thick. His arms dropped to his sides. And just as he felt the room begin to fall away from him, he saw a figure step into the doorway.
Nick.
Adrian tried to focus on his face, to scream his name, to beg or accuse or confess, he didn't even know anymore. But everything slowed.
Nick's face blurred at the edges, a ghost hovering in a doorframe.
And then, darkness surged like a wave.
*
(Somewhere In Time)
A kitchen.
A clock ticking so loud it almost drowned out the muttering from the other room. The child, no older than seven, crouched in the narrow space between the fridge and the wall. A hiding place. The floor was cold, linoleum cracked, and curling. A small toy car was gripped in his hand, silent and unmoving.
The child could hear him. The voice of the man who raised him. No, ruled over him.
"You think I don't know when you're lying?"
The tone wasn't angry yet. That usually came later. This was the coaxing before the storm. The part where Adrian's mother, cigarette in hand, murmured from behind a door, "Just don't provoke him tonight."
Adrian's small fingers clutched the toy tighter. His lip bled where he'd bitten it. His knees hurt. He'd been there a while.
His father's boots thundered across the floor. He tried not to breathe.
"You hear me?"
A pause. Silence. Then the kitchen light would go out. And in the dark, Adrian began to cry without sound.
A flash of light.
The memory shifted again, as if viewed through a pane of frosted glass melting in slow motion. Adrian was twelve now. He stood at the window of a second-floor room, watching the street below. It was autumn. Dead leaves swirled, brittle against the concrete. A car pulled away from the curb. His mother's car. She didn't say goodbye. She never did. A note on the table with a twenty-dollar bill and the words "Don't do anything stupid" written in quick, slanted handwriting.
The house was quiet again. No shouting. No footsteps. No one to talk to. No warmth. No touch.
Young Adrian walked to the mirror and stared at his reflection for a long time. The silence roared around him. He was already learning how to become someone else. Already practicing the charm, the misdirection, the grin that hid the hurt. Already building the armor he'd wear for decades.
The suddenly, flashing images.
His father slapping a book from his hands. "Books are for pussies. You want to learn something? Learn how to keep your mouth shut."
A young Adrian, bruised but not crying. Eyes hardened. Mouth silent.
A teenage Adrian in the garage with a baseball bat. Not swinging. Just holding it.
A door slamming.
Rain falling.
Another car peeling away into the night.
And then, Nick's voice. Soft. Distant. Real. "Adrian…"
Adrian groaned, half-asleep, half-sinking. His eyes flutter open, heavy-lidded. He saw Nick, standing at the foot of the bed, looking at him. Not pity. Not love. Something in between.
Adrian's lips tremble. "Don't…leave me," he slurred.
Another flash. Another memory.
Adrian stood in the corner, barely ten years old, arms pinned to his sides like a soldier awaiting orders. His breath was shallow, his stomach empty save for fear. His father loomed at the table, whiskey glass clutched like a weapon.
"Look at you," his father finally muttered, not even glancing up. "All nerves and silence. Jesus Christ. You're ten, not two."
Adrian didn't move. He'd learned stillness was safer than words. But stillness, tonight, seemed to irritate the man more.
"You know what they told me at school today?" his father asked, eyes narrowing. "Your teacher said you don't talk to the other boys. Says you sit by yourself at lunch. You ashamed of them? Or just ashamed of yourself?"
Adrian said nothing.
The chair scraped as his father stood. He sauntered across the room, the glass now swinging casually in one hand, his voice low and venomous. "You think you're better than this house? Better than me?"
Adrian opened his mouth. "No, sir."
"Then why you act like it?"
"I'm not..."
Crack.
The back of the man's hand struck Adrian's cheek. It wasn't rage. It was precision. Controlled. As though it were more lesson than punishment.
His mother didn't flinch. She sat across the room, on the tattered sofa, flipping slowly through a magazine. Her glass of wine untouched on the coffee table. She didn't look at him. She never did.
"You walk around here like you're made of glass," his father said, towering over him. "Like every little thing might break you. I see you. Watching people like you're outside the damn window looking in. You know what they do to boys like that? Huh?"
He crouched, his face close now, breath rancid with booze.
"They eat you alive."
Adrian's hands trembled. He bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood.
"You want to cry, go cry in your pillow. But when you walk out that door, you smile. You stand straight. You keep your goddamn secrets to yourself."
He stood again, stepping back. "A man is who he pretends to be. And if you don't start pretending soon, the world's gonna do it for you."
Adrian wiped his cheek with the back of his hand. His voice was tiny. "What if I don't want to pretend?"
His father laughed, a sharp bark with no real humor. "Then you're as good as lost." He turned, walking back to the table. Sat. Drank. "Now get the fuck out of my sight."
Adrian stood there for a moment longer, trying to breathe through the tightness in his chest. Then, quietly, he slipped out of the kitchen, past the cracked drywall, and the broken doorframe his father had never fixed.
His father was wrong, Adrian would think later. The world did care about feelings. It just preferred them sharp-edged, packaged in confidence, masked in performance.
The next morning, he stood before the mirror and practiced his smile for the first time. Not a real one, but one that closed all the doors.
Charm became his armor.
Attention, his addiction.
He was fifteen when he kissed his first boy.
Seventeen when he started lying just to see how far someone would follow him into the story.
Eighteen when he learned that affection was a weapon if wielded just right.
Then, another flash. Another memory.
Adrian was fifteen.
He sat on the couch in an old T-shirt and shorts, his knees pulled to his chest, textbook open on his lap. He was studying, always studying. School was the only place where rules felt clear. Do this, get that. Be smart, and someone might notice.
His mother was nearby, painting her nails a pale pink. The television was on but muted. A talk show flashed silently across the screen, celebrities pretending they had perfect lives. The house smelled like acetone and something burning slightly in the kitchen. She hadn't moved to check.
Adrian looked up, cautious. "Mom?"
She didn't answer.
He tried again. "Mom, do you think I'm...good-looking?"
She laughed, a dry, mechanical sound. She blew on her nails. "Why? Someone finally ask you out?"
"No," he said quickly, the heat rising to his face.
Her eyes flicked to him, sharp and appraising like she didn't recognize him for a moment. "You're not bad-looking, Adrian. You've got your father's eyes. That's...unfortunate, but manageable." She went back to her nails. "Why are you even asking?"
He hesitated. "I don't know."
She exhaled, already bored. "You'll figure it out. Boys like you always do. Just be charming, say the right things, make them laugh. You'd be surprised how little people need to believe in something. Make them think you're special. They'll do the rest for you."
He nodded slowly, chewing on her words like they were gospel. Make them think.
Outside, a car door slammed. A group of boys was gathering near the corner to skate. He could hear their laughter. He sometimes stood at the window and watched them. Not close enough to be noticed. Just enough to feel the ache of being apart.
His mother looked up again, catching the expression on his face. "You're not going to be the handsome one, Adrian. That much is clear. So be the interesting one. That's your only way in."
And that was that. No smile. No reassurance. No affection. Just strategy.
Adrian closed his book and stood. The sun had moved, and the shadows inside the room were shifting. The light made half of his mother's face vanish in silhouette. She looked like a stranger again. He walked past her, heading toward his room. His steps felt hollow on the floor. Before the door closed, he whispered, not loud enough for her to hear. "I wish I was someone else."
In his room, he opened a notebook and began writing things down. Phrases. Observations. Ways to talk, to look, to lean. He wrote lies that sounded like truth, and truths he could make sound like lies.
It was the beginning. Of that person who'd one day seduce, manipulate, inspire, but never connect. Not really. Because real connection, he'd learned, was only for people who were already enough.
And Adrian had never been enough.
Another light burst. Another memory. This time, verging on reality. Adrian could feel his consciousness drift between awareness and slumber.
He was seventeen now.
The house was freezing. Not just from the weather, though a blizzard was raging outside, and the insulation hadn't been fixed since before Adrian was born. No, this cold ran deeper. It lived in the walls. It lived in his father's silences and his mother's apathy.
It was the day after Christmas.
The tree in the corner was bare. There had never been ornaments, only the brittle plastic branches and a cheap string of blinking lights, half of which no longer worked. The single gift he'd received was a pack of socks. The receipt was still inside.
His father was in the garage, tinkering with a busted snowblower he would never fix. Adrian stood in the kitchen, staring at the note card in his hands. A scholarship interview. A real one.
He had done everything right, kept his grades perfect, read everything, stayed invisible in the right places and dazzling in others. He had earned this moment. He had worked for it in the lonely hours of the night, under the scratch of a desk lamp, with a heart that beat too fast for someone so young. Playing around with programing on the busted up hand-me-down laptop he'd bought with saved money.
And he wanted, God, wanted, to tell someone. So he stepped out into the snow, trudged to the garage, and opened the door.
His father sat on a stool, cigarette perched on his lip, grease on his hands. The radio played some AM sports commentary. He didn't look up.
Adrian hesitated at the threshold. "Dad?" A grunt. "I got called in for an interview. Columbia." He tried to sound casual, proud, but his voice cracked on the last word. He swallowed.
Silence.
"For what?" his father asked.
"A scholarship. Full ride."
His father laughed. Laughed. A short, sharp thing like a cough. "Columbia? Don't waste their fuckin' time."
Adrian blinked. "I...what?"
"You're not going to make it there," his father muttered, tightening a bolt. "You think they want some small-town loser with no money, no connections, and a chip on his shoulder? They'll chew you the fuck up."
Adrian stood frozen, breath fogging in the cold. "My GPA's perfect. I've..."
"Yeah, well, you always were good at memorizing shit," his father cut in. "But life's not a textbook. It's a brawl. You don't have the stomach for it."
The boy said nothing.
His father finally looked up, eyes bloodshot, jaw clenched. "You start dreaming too big, you'll forget where you came from. And that's when you really get hurt."
Adrian stared at him. Something inside wilted. A flower that had fought through frost, only to be stepped on before it could bloom.
Then something else happened.
A flicker.
A flint spark in the dark.
He folded the card, placed it in his back pocket, and turned. Not another word. Not a protest. But as he walked away, his spine straightened. His footsteps were lighter than before, and not because of pride, but because he finally understood.
He would never get what he needed from the people who had given him life.
So that day, Adrian made a decision.
He'd take it from the world instead. He'd become someone no one could ignore. Someone too dazzling to dismiss, too brilliant to laugh at, too ruthless to destroy.
Someone who would never, ever, be powerless again.
Another flash. Another memory. More shallow. The edges of Adrian's consciousness inches from breaking the surface.
He was nineteen.
It was the early hours of a Sunday morning.
Winter still lingered outside the dorm windows, slicking the roads with ice and silencing the city in its grip. But inside the small, off-campus apartment, warmth hummed, soft light, bare feet on hardwood, the aftermath of intimacy stitched into the air.
He was sitting on the edge of the bed. Shirtless, sweaty, skin still humming from all the fucking.
His name was Marcus.
The quiet kind. Kind eyes. The type of boy who looked at you like you were something fragile and irreplaceable. He was a second-year literature student with ink-stained hands and a nervous stammer that had faded by the time Adrian had led him to bed. Their nights had begun as study sessions and turned, gradually, into something more. Touch. Laughter. Heat. Fucking. And more fucking.
Marcus sat behind him now, knees tucked to his chest, bouncing slightly back and forth. Watching Adrian dress.
"You're leaving?" Marcus asked gently.
Adrian didn't turn. "Yeah."
"It's 3 a.m."
"I've got shit to do."
Marcus chuckled softly, not deterred. "You could stay. Sleep in. I'll make breakfast."
Adrian pulled his shirt over his head. "Thanks, but no."
A pause.
Then Marcus said it, the thing Adrian had been waiting for.
"I like you."
Three words, tossed like stones into still water. Adrian paused, hands adjusting the cuffs of his coat. Then he turned.
His face was still. Calm. Detached. He looked at Marcus like he was a stranger asking for too much on a train platform.
"You shouldn't."
Marcus blinked, startled. "What?"
"Look, you like the idea of me," Adrian said, voice low.
Marcus sat up straighter. "We've spent months together."
"Yeah, and that's on me. I shouldn't have let it go on this long."
Silence.
"Wow," Marcus said, breathless, eyes narrowing. "That's it? After everything?"
Adrian met his gaze, cool as winter rain. "I don't want to do this. Don't get me wrong, it was fun. But yeah... we're done."
Marcus's face shifted. Hurt bloomed, immediate and raw. "You're an asshole, you know that?"
Adrian smiled, but it was empty. "Yeah."
"Get out."
Adrian didn't argue. He picked up his coat and walked out the door, his boots echoing on the apartment steps, each one more hollow than the last.
The campus was silent. The snow had turned to rain now, cold and thin, slicing across his face like glass. He walked through it, face tilted up, not flinching. By the time he reached the dormitory, dawn was already creeping in.
He let himself in, moving on autopilot. Room empty. Laptop on snooze.
He stood before the mirror in the narrow corridor between the closet and his bed. And he looked at himself. His reflection stared back. Disheveled. Beautiful. Alive. But inside?
Nothing.
No shame.
No remorse.
Not even satisfaction.
Just silence. And a strange, cold clarity.
Something eerily close to peace.
Like the last wound had scabbed over.
"There's nothing in there," he whispered as he watched his own lips. Almost as if he was watching someone else. And then a strange, tamed yet cold smirk took hold of his lips. "Good," Adrian added.
*
(Present Time)
Light crept through the blinds, sloping across the rumpled bed where Adrian stirred against the sheets. His body ached in its usual ways, a dull heaviness that never quite let up. He blinked, eyelids fluttering against the pressure of sleep, and turned his head slowly, the muscles of his neck stiff, uncooperative.
There, beside the bed. A figure, silent. Adrian's breath caught as he recognized the profile before the details had time to sharpen.
Bobby.
Sitting in the chair closest to the bed. Hoodie pulled halfway over his head. Elbows resting on his knees. Eyes steady, guarded.
Adrian blinked again. His mouth opened slightly. "Hey," he croaked, his voice still blurred from the sedatives. His lips trembled. "You're here…"
Bobby didn't answer right away. His expression didn't soften, didn't waver. If anything, it tightened, just slightly, around the mouth, as if the act of being there required more restraint than he'd anticipated.
"I came because he asked me to," Bobby said flatly. Adrian's faint hope shriveled in his chest like paper set to flame. "Honestly, I would've been fine never seeing you again," Bobby continued, his tone quiet but precise, honed like a blade kept just sharp enough to cut. "So...if you've got something to say," Bobby added, finally leaning forward, elbows on his knees, eyes locking on Adrian's. "...now would be a good time."
(To be continued...)
Casual Wanderer © 2025
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