Chapter 22 #3
Gael had answered on the second ring. Had listened without interrupting while Landen said things that probably didn't make sense. Then, he’d said simply, "Knot. One hour."
Now Landen sat at their usual table, the familiar weight of the club doing nothing to ground him.
It was supposed to feel like safety, like home, like the one place where he could let the mask slip.
Tonight, it felt like nothing. Just another room full of people who didn't know that his world had just cracked open.
He ordered whiskey. Drank the first glass too quickly, let it burn down his throat, waited for it to numb him. It didn't.
Gael watched him over the rim of his own drink, eyes sharp, expression concerned, though he hadn't said anything yet.
"Okay," Gael said after a moment. "What happened?"
Landen laughed. Short and bitter, a sound that scraped on the way out.
"Everything."
The word was too small. Too simple. But it was all he had.
Others started spilling out before he could stop them. Adriel disappearing from the party. The unanswered calls. The texts that went nowhere. The email, the fucking email, short and professional and final.
His voice shook as he talked. He could hear the way it wavered and cracked, could hear the anger bleeding into something rawer, uglier. He didn't care. The words needed to come out, needed to be said, needed to exist outside his own head where they couldn't circle endlessly anymore.
He slammed his glass down harder than necessary. The sound was sharp, drawing a few glances from nearby tables.
"This," he snapped, gesturing vaguely between them. "This is why I don't do this. This is why I don't let myself fall for anyone. It's always the same. You open yourself up and it fucking destroys you."
Gael didn't interrupt. He didn't try to calm him down, didn't offer platitudes, didn't say any of the useless things people usually said. He let Landen rage himself empty. His eyes never left Landen's face. His expression never shifted from that quiet, focused attention.
Landen kept going. Said things he hadn't said to anyone, maybe hadn't even admitted to himself.
About how he'd known better. About how he'd told himself to be careful, to keep distance, to protect himself.
About how he'd failed anyway, let Adriel in anyway, fallen anyway.
About how this was exactly what he deserved for being stupid enough to believe it could last.
When he finally ran out of breath, the silence rushed back in.
He sat there, chest heaving, hands clenched on the table, and waited for something. Absolution. Agreement. Another drink. He didn't know.
Gael signaled the bartender. Ordered another round.
They sat in silence as the drinks were set down. Landen stared at his glass, watching the amber liquid catch the low light. He didn't reach for it. Didn't trust his hands to be steady enough to hold it.
"I know it hurts," Gael said quietly. "And I know it feels like it confirms every reason you've ever had to stay closed off."
Landen didn't look at him. Kept his eyes fixed on the glass, on the tiny reflections of light on its surface.
"But," Gael continued, "you're not stupid. And you're not na?ve."
A pause.
"If you let yourself care this much, if you let yourself commit, it's because it was real."
Landen's jaw tightened. A muscle jumped in his cheek.
"People don't vanish for no reason," Gael said. "Not like that. Something happened. You just don't know what yet."
Landen wanted to argue, to list all the reasons Gael was wrong, to point out that sometimes people did vanish, sometimes they did leave without explanation, sometimes it was exactly what it looked like. But the arguments wouldn't form. Couldn't push past the ache in his throat.
Gael paused. When he spoke again, his voice had gentled.
"And if it really is over… you'll survive it. You'll get through this."
Landen's throat closed. He swallowed hard against it, fought to keep his face steady.
"You deserve to be loved."
The words hit him like a blow. Unexpected. He felt them land in his chest, in the hollow place where Adriel used to be, and something in him cracked.
He nodded once. Stiffly. The only movement he could manage.
Because he knew Gael was right. He knew it the way you know the sun will rise, the way you know winter will come; with a certainty that existed separate from feeling. The truth of it was there, steady and immovable, even if he couldn't reach it right now. Even if it felt like a lie.
"And if you don't," Gael finished, "you're not alone. You have me. You have all of us."
Landen finally looked up at him then. Gael's face was calm.
Landen didn't trust himself to speak. He lifted his glass instead. A toast to something he couldn't name. Gael lifted his own glass.
The whiskey burned going down, same as before, but this time it felt different. The pain was still there. The fear. The blank, echoing absence where Adriel should be. None of that had changed. But underneath it, faint and stubborn, was the knowledge that Gael was right.
Even if he couldn't face it yet.