July 17, 2021—Seattle, Washington—Four Months Later #2
Because once, they had conquered countries. Now, he couldn’t even leave the room. Once, they ran barefoot through unknown cities, swam in cool lakes, made love on the beach and under the stars. Now, he could barely stand without help.
And he hated it. Hated that his own body was betraying the love they had built. Hated that somewhere deep inside, a cruel voice whispered that maybe Logan deserved more than this husk he had become.
Because Logan had loved a man who could carry him out of a riptide.
Not the one barely holding onto himself.
Adrian knew, in theory, that Logan loved him.
He said it often. Gently. Fiercely. Without hesitation.
He brought him flowers even when Adrian couldn’t smell them, told bad jokes just to see Adrian’s laugh, played old songs on his phone, curled beside him in the too-small hospital bed just to hold him through the nausea.
Logan loved loudly, persistently, stubbornly.
And still, Adrian couldn’t feel it.
Not really.
Because love, to him now, felt like a relic belonging to another lifetime. A dialect he once spoke fluently but could no longer comprehend. It echoed around him, cleaved, split from its meaning yet clinging to him all the same, beautiful but incomprehensible, like music underwater.
He knew Logan meant every word. But he didn’t know why.
Why would someone love this?
This body that betrayed him. This face that had hollowed.
This version of himself that couldn’t even stand up straight without clutching the rail of the bed like an old man.
He was vanishing piece by piece, and Logan kept insisting there was still something here worth holding on to.
But Adrian couldn’t see it. Couldn’t feel it.
He felt like driftwood, a vestige of something once alive, now just a shape washed ashore.
Logan said I love you, and Adrian tried to believe him.
But how could he? He didn’t love himself. Didn’t even like himself. Most days he barely recognized the person in the mirror, and on the days he did, he felt only shame.
Because somewhere in the quiet rot of his mind, a voice whispered: He didn’t fall in love with this. You’re a burden now. You’re not beautiful anymore. He’ll stay, but only because he’s too kind to leave.
Adrian tried to shut it out. He tried to summon the way Logan used to look at him, like he was made of sunlight and seawater, like he was something wild and holy. But memory was a fragile, elusive thing, especially when grief made the past feel like a lie.
Depression was louder.
The whispers turned into screams that drowned out all memory.
It spoke in absolutes. It rewrote truths.
It turned love into obligation, tenderness into pity.
And all the warmth that Logan offered—the soft hands, the whispered I love yous, the way he stayed even when he didn’t have to—was entirely consumed by the static in Adrian’s mind, by venom that infected his brain and gradually seeped into his heart.
Every kind word drowned beneath the weight of that brutal inner voice.
You’re not him anymore. You’re broken. You’re a burden. He’s lying. He has to be.
No matter how tightly Logan held him, Adrian could still feel himself slipping away. The force of his self-hatred was tidal, dragging him under, again and again. It was relentless. Merciless. Coldblooded. Stronger than love, some days. Stronger than memory. Stronger than him.
And that was the cruelest part of all: That something so dark, so small and invisible, could undo everything beautiful he’d ever believed about himself.
And so he lay there, wrapped in sterile sheets, drowning in love he couldn’t feel, with a heart that still wanted to believe, but a mind too broken to let it in.
The fear. The shame.
What if Logan woke up one morning and saw things clearly? Saw how young he still was. How much life he had ahead. How much easier it would be to love someone whose body wasn’t a battleground.
What if the phone did ring one day—not with warmth, not with love, but with the soft, careful unraveling of everything? A voice low and tired. A pause too long. And then the words: I can’t do this anymore. I want someone I can build a future with... not someone fading in a hospital bed.
And Adrian would understand. Of course, he would. That was the worst part. He wouldn’t scream or beg or accuse. He would nod. He would whisper, I get it, and mean it.
But afterward—quietly, invisibly—it would destroy him.
Because if Logan left, really left, Adrian wouldn’t just be sick.
He’d be lost.
He’d be gone.
He’d still be breathing, but there would be nothing left inside to hold onto.
Tears came before he could stop them. He turned his face into the pillow, pressing down hard, hoping the weight might stop the flood. His fingers curled into the sheets, grasping and clinging to the fabric.
He hated this.
Hated the way grief softly curled up in his chest, as if it belonged there, like a dark, silent companion.
Hated that he cried so easily now, hated that even his emotions had become soft, exposed, raw.
This fear, this hollow, gnawing ache that lived at the edge of everything, it wasn’t about death anymore. It was about being left behind before he was even gone. About watching someone he loved carry the unbearable weight of him, and knowing—deep down—that one day, that weight might be too much.
Because cancer didn’t just take the body. It took the self. It wore Adrian down in layers, first his strength, then his voice, then his light, and finally it came for his sense of worth.
And Adrian could feel it now. The unraveling. The part of him that used to believe he was enough. That he was worthy of being chosen.
Even on the good days, even when Logan was there, whispering I love yous into his skin like a prayer, something inside him pulled away. Because love—real as it was—didn’t always survive sickness.
And no matter how tightly Logan held him, Adrian couldn’t stop wondering when it would happen. When the hand would loosen.
When the goodbye would come.
Because some part of him believed it already had.
Then the door opened.
Adrian didn’t move. Didn’t sit up. Didn’t even turn his head.
He just listened, to the soft click of the latch, the shuffle of familiar footsteps, the rustle of Logan’s jacket as it hit the chair, the water rushing, the sterilized soap dispenser being pressed, the sound of a paper towel tearing, and finally, the slow exhale as Logan stepped fully into the room, like he’d been holding his breath until now.
“Missed you,” Logan murmured as he leaned down, pressing a kiss to Adrian’s forehead. His arms wrapped around him without hesitation, like instinct, like home. Like nothing had changed.
Adrian let him. Let the weight of Logan’s body settle near his. Let the scent of him—warm skin, lingering cologne, body wash—fill his lungs. And then something else. Something foreign. A trace he couldn’t name, and didn’t want to.
“You just landed?” he asked, voice flat, his body unmoving.
Logan eased onto the edge of the bed beside him, fingers seeking Adrian’s hand, holding it gently. As if he hadn’t noticed how stiff Adrian had gone. As if he hadn’t felt that his fingers didn’t return the touch.
“Yeah… horrible flight,” Logan groaned, rubbing his temple. “My head’s killing me.”
Logan wasn’t wearing his suit; he was dressed casually in jeans and a sweater. He was frantic about keeping Adrian away from germs, so either he changed into clean clothes in the car or stopped at home. Adrian thought it was the latter.
Adrian stared at the ceiling, breath steady, until he couldn’t hold it in any longer. “You didn’t call last night.” It was soft. Almost laidback. But the words cut like glass in his own throat.
Just a whisper of accusation. Just enough to betray the ugly thing curling in his chest, the bitterness he hated, the desperation he refused to name.
Logan sighed, shifting in his seat.
“Yeah, by the time I got back to the hotel, it was late. Didn’t want to wake you up or something.”
He said it as if it were nothing.
Like it hadn’t mattered. Like Adrian hadn’t spent half the night staring at his phone, counting the minutes, waiting for a screen to light up with his name.
Adrian nodded, looking away.
Didn’t say it would have mattered to me. Didn’t say I waited for you. Didn’t say every fucking second without you feel like another part of my body dying, and you didn’t even think to send a text?
He said nothing.
But Logan noticed.
“I’m sorry I didn’t text either,” he said, his voice careful now, like he was trying to read Adrian, trying to navigate around something fragile. “I was tired. And… a bit drunk. I just fell asleep.”
Adrian blinked.
“Drunk?” His own voice betrayed him, too quiet, too raw, too exposed.
Logan nodded. “Yeah. Closed the deal. The team wanted to go get some drinks. Couldn’t say no.
” How many times had he whispered those words to Sandy, fabricating stories in the dim glow of deception?
Too many to count. Now, he spoke them to Adrian, and for the first time, they were true. The irony of it was not lost on him.
And that was it. The last piece of rope in Adrian’s chest snapped.
Because of course.
Of course, Logan had been out drinking with his team, with people who weren’t trapped inside the walls of a hospital, who weren’t rotting away from the inside out, who weren’t dying.
Of course, he had forgotten.
And why wouldn’t he?
Adrian wasn’t something you remembered anymore.
He wasn’t something you longed for.
Not like before. Not like when he was still beautiful, still alive, still whole.
And on some level, Adrian was happy for him. Logan needed to have some moments like this. But…