Chapter 16
Magnus
Has it been four days or six since I last saw Alaric? The alcohol makes everything blur together.
My sheets still smell like him.
It’s faint now, buried under the sourness of sweat and stale whiskey, but it’s there. Clean soap, the faintest trace of his cologne. Alaric Hale—rich boy scent, precise and calm—something that doesn’t belong in a place like this.
I tell myself I should change the bed. I even pull the corner of the blanket up, stare at the pale sheets beneath. But my chest tightens, and I stop. I can’t bring myself to wash him away.
So I don’t. I just lie here and breathe him in like it’s oxygen.
My phone’s dead again. I could plug it in. I could see the missed calls piling up, the texts from Phoenix, the Wolves’ management, maybe even my agent. But the thought makes my stomach twist.
If I don’t look, then the world outside this apartment doesn’t exist. No practices missed, no lectures, no eyes watching me unravel. Just me and the quiet.
And the bottle.
It’s the only thing that doesn’t leave when I screw everything up.
The first swallow burns the way it always does. It’s a small, sharp punishment before the warmth sets in. Then it’s easier. The ache dulls. The air stops pressing against my lungs. I can almost pretend I’m fine.
That’s the lie I tell myself, anyway.
I used to hate the taste. Now it feels like muscle memory. My hand knows the shape of the glass, the tilt of the bottle. It’s become ritual: drink, breathe, forget.
I stare at the ceiling. The light bulb flickers, the kind of dull yellow that makes everything look sick. There’s a stack of empty takeout boxes on the counter, a pile of laundry in the corner. The air smells like cheap liquor and hopelessness.
I used to keep this place clean. I used to care.
A dry laugh scrapes my throat. Care about what? The team that’s probably already talking about trading me? The fans who’ll call me a waste of talent?
Or the man who looked me in the eye and said he’d never choose me?
The bottle’s half gone before I realize it. I pour another. My reflection in the black TV screen looks back at me—hollow eyes, messy hair, stubble too long. I look like someone who’s been losing a fight he started himself.
Every time I close my eyes, I see him. The way he’d wrinkle his nose when I said something dumb. The way his voice went soft when he was tired. The way his lips trembled when he said it was over.
It hurts to think, so I drink.
It hurts to breathe, so I drink.
It hurts to remember the look on his face—that mix of guilt and distance—so I drink until I can’t see it anymore.
It’s not even about getting drunk now. It’s about quiet. It’s about turning down the noise in my head until I can stand to exist in this skin again. Where the world could stop spinning for just a moment so I can rest.
But the quiet never lasts. It never does.
My chest starts to feel tight, like I can’t get enough air. The room spins a little when I stand. I brace myself on the wall and try to laugh it off. “Still got it,” I mumble to no one. My voice sounds strange, slurred and too loud in the silence.
I move through the apartment aimlessly. There’s a sweater of his draped over a chair. He left it the last time he was here. I pick it up, press it to my face. It still smells like him.
Something inside me cracks open. I drop to my knees on the floor, still clutching the fabric.
“Why’d you have to say that?” I whisper. “Why’d you make me believe—”
The words fall apart before I can finish.
I sit there for a long time, rocking slightly, breathing through the shaking in my hands. The whiskey hums in my veins, but it doesn’t numb it anymore. Not really.
Eventually I crawl back onto the bed. The same unwashed sheets, the same hollow warmth. I turn my face into the pillow and let out a sound that isn’t quite a sob. More like a low, broken noise from somewhere deep.
The world feels very far away. The Wolves, the rink, the fans, the headlines—all of it fades behind a fog. There’s only this room and the smell of him and the sound of my own breathing.
I think about calling someone. Phoenix, maybe. He’d show up.
But then what? I’d open the door, and he’d see what I’ve turned into. I can’t let him see me like this.
So I don’t.
I drink instead. Another glass. Then another. The bottle’s empty now. I drop it onto the floor, where it rolls and bumps against the dresser.
The quiet creeps back in. It’s almost peaceful, this stillness between one mistake and the next.
I close my eyes and tell myself I’ll stop tomorrow. I’ll clean up, charge my phone, go back to practice, pretend everything’s fine.
But I know I’m lying.
Because even if I cleaned every inch of this place, scrubbed the sheets, threw out every bottle, it wouldn’t change the fact that he’s gone. That he chose safety over me.
And I don’t know how to live with that.
So I drink.
And breathe.
And forget.
But what I can’t do is sleep. And now the bed feels like a restraint. I stumble my way to my sofa and am relieved to feel some comfort in the coolness of the cushions. I settle in again. Maybe now I’ll rest.
The knock on the door comes slow, deliberate. Someone who knows me well enough to know I’ll pretend I’m not here if I don’t want to answer.
I don’t move. I don’t even blink.
“Magnus?” The voice is careful, patient. It belongs to Phoenix, which makes it worse. Someone who looks at me like I still have a chance, even when I’ve made it clear I don’t.
I want to tell him to go away. To stop. To leave me in this apartment with my mess, my bottles, the smell of him still clinging to the sheets. But my throat is too tight, and my tongue feels useless.
“Magnus, come on. Open up.”
I hear the shift in his weight, the small creak of the floorboards outside the door. He’s pacing. Not a lot, just enough to let me know he isn’t leaving.
I don’t answer.
“Look, I get it,” he says, softer now. “I get it, okay? You’re hurting. I know. But you can’t give up on everything just because of Alaric.”
How does he know? Maybe another headline. Kyle Thorn Fucks Alaric Hale. Kyle Thorn Golden Boy. Kyle Thorn Deserves Everything and Magnus Flint Deserves Nothing.
I scoff, though no one sees it. “Everything? My life? My team? My career?” I whisper, though the words barely register in my own head. “What’s left for me if he’s gone?”
There’s a pause on the other side. Phoenix breathing, steady and calm. I can feel the patience radiating through the door. I hate him a little for it.
“You think you’re the only one who’s ever been used?” he says, almost joking, almost teasing. But there’s steel underneath. “You think nobody’s ever been burned and broken and still found a way to get up?”
I don’t respond. I can’t. My chest is tight. My lungs ache. Even the alcohol that’s supposed to make this easier is just a fog that won’t lift.
“Magnus,” he says, quieter now. “I’m not going to yell at you. I’m not going to leave either. But you can’t just—” His voice falters. Just for a fraction of a second, and I know he’s trying not to say something that would make me break down. “You can’t just let yourself rot here.”
I hear him shuffle back a step. The silence stretches, the kind that makes the room feel smaller. I feel the weight of his eyes on the door, even though I can’t see him. I want to tell him to leave. I want to scream that I don’t care about anything anymore.
But I don’t.
“I’m worried about you,” he says finally. “I know I’m probably the last person you want to see right now, but—Magnus, open the door. Please.”
I bite my lip until it hurts. My fingers twitch against the blankets, restless, as if they could reach out and pull him in without me even moving. I want to. I want to crawl across the apartment and grab him, beg him to make this stop, beg him to make me care about something again.
But I can’t.
I hear him sigh. Long, steady. It’s not defeated, not yet. He’s patient. Damn him, he’s patient.
“You’re better than this,” he says. “You’re not just some shattered mess who drinks to forget.
You’re Magnus fucking Flint. You’re smart.
You’re talented. You’re ridiculous sometimes, but you’re alive and you can still fight.
You don’t have to sit here and drink yourself into oblivion just because someone decided you weren’t their forever. ”
I hate that he’s right. I hate that I want to throw open the door and cling to him. I hate that I want someone to tell me that I matter, that it’s not all over.
I press back against the couch, trying to disappear into it, trying to erase myself. My phone is dead. The lights are off. The bottles are empty. But Phoenix doesn’t leave. He’s still there, outside my apartment, waiting for me to acknowledge him.
“You’re not alone, Magnus,” he says. “You’ve got people who care. People who want to help you. And I—look, I don’t know what I’m going to do with you yet, but I’m not giving up. Not on you. Not like this.”
I swallow hard. My throat aches. I can’t speak. I can’t.
I hear him shift again, his voice fading slightly as he crouches down, as if trying to be less intimidating.
“I know you think I don’t get it, but I do.
I’ve been where you are, twisting yourself into someone else just to feel like you’re enough.
And it doesn’t work. You don’t want it to work.
You want him, and that’s fine. But you’re still you, Magnus, and that doesn’t disappear just because he walked away. ”
I close my eyes. My heart is pounding. My stomach is a knot of guilt, grief, and rage at myself. The alcohol buzz feels distant now, hollow.
“I’m not going to open the door,” I say finally, loud enough for him to hear.
Phoenix sighs again, the sound carrying warmth and exasperation at the same time. “Okay. Fine. But I’m not leaving. You call me. You text me. You wake up tomorrow, and I’m here. You don’t get to disappear. Not like this.”