Chapter June 27, 2020—Seattle, Washington—Three Months Later #4
The tiny green dot glowed like a pulse—steady, unrelenting—next to Adrian’s name.
A beacon. A wound. Proof that he was there, somewhere, existing in the same digital ether, breathing in the same time, though a world apart.
Logan’s fingers trembled above the keyboard, the weight of unsent words pressing against his chest like stones in a riverbed.
It would take only a moment. Just one flicker of courage, one keystroke, and he could cross the distance.
But could Adrian see him? Was he watching that same small dot, tracing Logan’s presence like a ghost?
The song still rang in his ears—Adrian’s voice, raw and golden, weaving the shape of them into melody. A song for him. A song about them. A song that held him captive, wrapped in the echo of a love that never learned how to end. And still, he was silent.
In the quiet aftermath of his breakdown, Logan couldn’t help but long for those stolen moments: sitting with Adrian on a beach, watching the waves, listening to him play their songs. He wanted to kiss him, to run his fingers through his hair, to drown in the warmth of his whiskey-colored eyes.
A shudder ran through his body, and he wiped the fresh tears from his phone screen, his heart beating painfully with each thought of Adrian, each memory that refused to fade. He wanted nothing more than to bridge the chasm he had created, to be near him again, no matter what it cost.
Logan shoved the phone back into his pocket, his fingers shaking as he did.
He couldn’t send the message; he wasn’t able to.
The words were trapped in his throat, suffocating him.
And what good would it do, anyway? Nothing.
He’d missed his chance, hadn’t he? He’d let time slip through his fingers, let the distance grow too wide between them, until all that was left was regret.
The reality of it settled in, a heavy weight in his chest, as if the decision had already been made for him, long before he even realized it.
And now, all that remained was this unbearable silence, the endless ache of knowing he could never undo the past, never go back to when Adrian’s heart had still been his.
I draw each breath only to offer it to you,
Be my lifesaver, and I’ll be yours,
We’ll weather the storms that crash on distant shores.
We’ll find safe harbors where the winds are still,
And wait till the waves are gone, till our hearts can heal.
Be my lifesaver, and I’ll be yours,
Together we’ll stand through the tempest’s roar,
We’ll find the shore where the storms can’t find,
I’ll keep you safe, through the tides unwind.
We’ll trace our path from the heart of the deepest blue.
As Logan closed his eyes, Adrian’s words echoed in his mind, sharp and haunting.
More tears spilled from his eyes, each one a reminder of the devastation he had caused.
The thought of Adrian, sitting somewhere, believing that Logan didn’t love him—that he wouldn’t be his lifesaver—cut through him like a blade.
He couldn’t bear the weight of that belief.
But, of course, how could Adrian know the truth?
With everything Logan had done—ditching him that day, blocking his number, pushing him away when he needed him most, and marrying someone else in front of him.
Logan’s heart twisted at the memory, the image of Adrian’s face, betrayed and broken, flashing before him like a constant, living, bleeding wound.
Logan rose to his feet, his body moving on autopilot, numb from the inside out.
The walls of his home closed in on him, the weight of it unbearable.
He needed to escape—needed to breathe. The thought of staying in that house, surrounded by everything that reminded him of his mistakes, felt like a prison.
He needed air. Without thinking, he grabbed his keys and left the house, the air thick with suffocating regret.
He strode toward his Mercedes, barely feeling his steps, and slammed the door behind him before driving away.
He wanted to scream. To let everything out in one soul-shaking, throat-tearing cry.
But what was the point? Screaming wouldn’t change anything.
It wouldn’t make Adrian hear him. No matter how loud he shouted, the one person he needed to reach was gone.
He could yell into the emptiness, and still, Adrian wouldn’t come.
Tears streamed down his face as he drove, each one a silent testament to the loss, to the choice he couldn’t take back. Every few seconds, he had to look away from the road, wiping them away, trying to erase the evidence of his broken heart.
At one red light, Logan couldn’t stand it anymore.
He pulled out his phone, hands trembling, and clicked play on the video again.
He tossed it onto the passenger seat, letting Adrian’s voice fill the car.
The melody wrapped around him like a warm, cruel embrace.
The song—so painfully beautiful, so filled with sorrow—was a confession, a truth Logan had been too afraid to face until now.
Each note was a reminder of what he’d lost. Every word felt like a cut, but he couldn’t stop listening.
He let Adrian’s voice wash over him, the most heartbreaking song he had ever heard, the kind that tore apart everything inside him and left him gasping for air.
“When you left, you took the best of me with you,
Was it hard for you to rise and leave?” Adrian’s voice echoed throughout the car, permeating it and bleeding through the fragile fabric of Logan’s being.
Logan’s fist slammed against the steering wheel, the impact reverberating through him like the crash of a wave against jagged rocks.
The tide of his frustration, guilt, and regret surged up all at once, an overwhelming swell he could no longer hold back.
Each strike against the wheel was like a breaking wave—violent, uncontrollable, and desperate.
His breath hitched as a scream tore from his chest, raw and fractured, echoing through the empty car like a distant storm crashing against the shore.
The sound of it was like the roar of the ocean in his ears, but it couldn’t drown out the silence of his own brokenness.
He pounded the wheel with the force of a tidal wave, his body trembling as the weight of his self-loathing pulled him deeper into the undertow.
“Yes! Yes! Yes! Goddamit, yes!” he cried out, his voice ragged, barely recognizable, as though it had been pulled from the depths of a storm. “The hardest thing I’ve ever done!”
“I always wonder if you ever think of me,”
“Yes! All the fucking time, Adrian! Of course, I think of you!”
“If you’re broken now, I can’t fix you,
Nothing of my soul survived the final dive.
But if you’re damaged, maybe you need me as much as I need you?
I am fractured, but if you are whole, then I’ll find my peace in your joy,
I believe my fate was to cross paths with you,
To be the one who saves you,”
“I am! I do! I’m so fucking broken, you can’t fix this!
It’s too late! I need you so much! I’m sorry!
I’m sorry!” he yelled into the suffocating silence of the car, his voice crashing through the night like a rogue wave, desperate and uncontrolled.
His foot slammed harder onto the accelerator, the car surging forward as if trying to outrun the hurricane of emotions that had taken hold of him.
“You can’t fix this! You can’t! It’s been too long!” The words ripped from his throat, the echoes shaking the car’s walls as though the very air around him was being torn apart.
Logan’s body trembled violently, his hands no longer steady enough to hold the wheel, as if the weight of his guilt and grief was too heavy, pulling him under.
His tears fell, blurring his vision, the salty sting in his eyes another reminder of the wreckage inside him.
Every sob was a wave crashing over him, and no matter how hard he tried to stay afloat, he felt himself sinking deeper into the cold, merciless depths.
“So when the end draws near, and life leaves you,
I’ll be here, waiting to save you.”
“I don’t deserve you waiting for me, Adrian! I don’t!”
Memories surged within him, crashing over Logan, pulling him under, dragging him back to some secret places he’d buried deep beneath the surface.
He could still feel the heat of the final kiss he shared with Adrian, moments before he stepped into the prison of his own making.
It was the kiss of a man who knew he was about to lose everything—raw, desperate, filled with the kind of longing that could drown a person.
Adrian’s lips had tasted like candy and sorrow, like a storm about to break.
The memory of Adrian’s touch, the warmth of his skin against his own, lingered in Logan’s every cell, as if he could still feel it.
Adrian’s scent, the way his presence filled every empty space, the soft strength of his heart that Logan had never fully understood until it was too late.
And now, that heart was gone, drifting far away, leaving Logan’s own fragile core barely beating, barely alive.
The pain was an ocean, vast and deep, swallowing him whole.
Every breath felt like he was drowning, the weight of his own self-destruction suffocating him.
He thought the pain could kill him, and part of him waited for the final wave to crash down and put an end to it.
When Logan reached the bar, he tried to steady himself, wiping his tears away as though they were nothing but the remnants of a storm that had already passed.
He put on the mask of normalcy, pretending that nothing had shattered him, pretending that the last piece of his heart wasn’t still caught in the undertow of Adrian’s absence.
“Whiskey,” he said, his voice a whisper that barely rose above the hum of the bar. “A glass, and a bottle.”
Logan stared down at the bracelet Adrian had given him, the metal cool against his wrist, a cruel reminder of the love he had thrown away.
The memories flooded him again, pounding at his fragile resolve, the weight of them threatening to crush him.
He missed Adrian with an ache that felt like it was tearing him apart, piece by piece.
“Wow, what happened to you?” Zack asked, his voice cutting through the haze, but it was too late. Logan had already disappeared into the sea of his thoughts.
“Not now, Zack,” Logan murmured, his voice heavy with a weight that was too much to bear. He let his head fall into his hands, elbows braced on the counter. “Whiskey. A lot of it.”
Zack set a bottle and a glass down beside him, and Logan was grateful when Zack filled the cup without a word.
He needed the burn of whiskey, the fire in his throat to numb the ache in his chest. The warmth of it spread through him briefly washing over the pain, but it wouldn’t last. Nothing could drown this.
Nothing could wash away the wreckage he’d made of his life.
Still, he drank, hoping the ocean of whiskey would carry him far enough away from the storm raging inside.