Chapter June 27, 2020—Seattle, Washington—One Year and Nine Months Later #3
So, instead, he wandered into a waterfront bar and took a secluded table at the edge, where he could see the ocean but still feel invisible.
His favorite bar, the one Zack tended, was off-limits now.
He couldn’t face the aftermath of his humiliation, couldn’t stomach the pity he’d see in Zack’s eyes.
He ordered a beer, light, easy, something that wouldn’t spiral him further down after last night.
The waiter eyed him curiously, probably wondering what a man in a tailored suit was doing in a beach bar on a cool evening alone.
Logan ignored the look and stared out at the water.
It was dark now, the waves barely visible under the faint glow of the moon.
But Logan didn’t see the waves. In his mind, he was back in the Philippines—or maybe it was Australia.
He couldn’t tell anymore. It didn’t matter.
All he could see was Adrian, sitting on the sand with a guitar in his lap, his fingers moving with practiced ease, his voice filling the night with something so raw and beautiful it made Logan’s chest ache.
Logan leaned back in his chair, letting his head fall against the wood.
His eyes fluttered shut, and Adrian was there again, smiling at him with that boyish grin that always seemed to melt the world away.
He was laughing, his eyes alight with joy, his voice carrying through Logan’s mind like a melody that refused to fade.
Other memories surfaced—Adrian in the ocean, his body alive with the rhythm of the waves, the unbridled freedom of surfing mirrored in his movements.
Logan’s lips parted in a silent gasp as the memories tightened around him.
He was drowning in them, and for once, he didn’t fight it.
He let the weight pull him under, let the tide carry him to a place where Adrian still existed, where he could still feel his warmth, hear his voice, and see the spark in his eyes.
Because in the dark reality of his present, Adrian was all he had left. Even if it was only in his mind.
Logan’s body had not felt the ocean’s embrace since that last time with Adrian.
The waves he once trusted to cleanse his soul now seemed like an unspoken accusation, a reminder of what he had abandoned.
He missed it, missed the salt and the rhythm, but more than that, he missed Adrian, missed the way they had been part of the sea together, wild and unbreakable.
Now the shore felt like a boundary he couldn’t cross, a wall between what was and what would never be again.
A single tear traced its way down Logan’s cheek, catching the dim light, a shard of broken glass dancing in his heartbreak, echoing the love he bore for Adrian and the sorrow he could not set down.
The moisture marked a fleeting path along his skin, drawn from the eyes that had once held Adrian as reality, not wish.
He didn’t wipe it away. He let it fall, unacknowledged, as he thanked the waiter who placed a beer in front of him.
His hands trembled slightly as he pulled out his phone.
He shouldn’t do this. He wasn’t strong enough to hear the song again, but the pull was irresistible.
He wanted—no, needed—to hear Adrian’s voice more than he needed air in his lungs.
He scrolled through his YouTube history, his chest tightening when he saw the thumbnail: Adrian, illuminated by dim bar lights, the familiar guitar cradled in his hands.
Logan’s thumb hovered over the screen, his breath catching as he saw the title, the name of that song.
Lifesaver. Of course, that’s what Adrian had called it. How could it have been anything else?
He pressed play, and the first notes ignited him from the inside out, his heart a furnace, molten and uncontainable, dissolving within his chest as he fought to draw breath into lungs that no longer knew how to breathe air unshared with Adrian.
Adrian’s voice followed, trembling and raw, filling every hollow space, fueling the roaring flames inside Logan, giving name to his pain and intensifying it.
It wasn’t just music; it was a haunting, a calling, a tether to a world Logan had abandoned but could never escape.
Adrian’s voice was like the sea itself, vast and unforgiving, yet capable of holding him in its depths.
As the camera panned over Adrian, Logan saw the guitar, and his breath caught in his throat.
It was that guitar—the one Logan had given him in the Philippines.
The sight of it was a blow he hadn’t expected.
He let out a laugh, but it was jagged and bitter, carrying more agony than joy.
That guitar was a piece of wood, an afterthought, a frantic decision made on a whim.
Yet here it was, still in Adrian’s hands, still carrying their story in its strings.
The engraving was still there: To my lifesaver.
He remembered the hours spent trekking through unfamiliar streets, the frantic search for a shop that could carve those words before the night ended.
He hadn’t even known if it was a good guitar, but Adrian had loved it.
He had played for hours, his fingers coaxing life from the strings, his voice weaving melodies that became the soundtrack to their love.
Logan smiled through his tears, his heart twisting painfully.
That guitar had been a gift, but Adrian had turned it into something sacred.
It was the same instrument Adrian now used to pour his heartbreak into the world.
And Logan, sitting alone in a beach bar with a beer and a phone pressed to his ear, was the reason for that heartbreak.
Adrian’s voice climbed as the chorus swelled: “I draw each breath only to offer it to you, be my lifesaver, and I’ll be yours...”
The words cut deep, carving through Logan’s defenses like a tide reclaiming the shore.
He closed his eyes, letting the sound surround him, letting the fire consume him.
Adrian’s voice was everywhere—in the air, in his blood, in the ache that lived in his chest. Logan wanted to reach through the screen, to touch him, to hold him, to tell him all the things he hadn’t said.
The song ended, and Logan pressed play again. And again. Each repetition was a fresh wound, but he couldn’t stop. It wasn’t just a song—it was a lifeline, a reminder of everything he had lost and everything he still carried.
The beer sat untouched on the table. Logan didn’t notice.
His eyes were fixed on the ocean, but he didn’t see the waves.
In his mind, he was somewhere else: Adrian sitting on a sandy shore, laughing, playing foolish games just to make Logan smile.
Adrian’s voice wasn’t just music; it was an invocation, pulling Logan back to a time when the world had made sense.
He whispered the lyrics under his breath, his voice trembling with emotion: “When you left, you took the best of me with you, was it hard for you to rise and leave?”
“Adrian,” Logan whispered into the emptiness, his voice cracking. “You don’t understand. Leaving was hard, but living without you? That’s harder. That’s impossible.”
He pressed play once more, the melody cascading over him, enveloping him completely, transforming him into something other than himself.
He was a man unraveling, a soul fragmented by the notes of the one who had ever stitched him together.
And he would listen endlessly, for it was the sole pathway to sensing Adrian’s essence, even if it shattered him from within.
The phone trembled in his hands as he whispered the final lines with Adrian, his voice a prayer, a confession, a plea: “I’ll be your lifesaver, even if you don’t wish to be mine...”
Logan lowered the phone, his heart heavy as the weight of the words settled over him. The ocean stretched out before him, dark and endless, a mirror of his own despair. He thought of Adrian, somewhere out there, playing that guitar, singing that song, carrying a pain that matched his own.
And for the first time in so long, Logan let himself weep openly, the tears falling like rain into the sea of his grief.
Logan’s mind wandered back to his wedding day, a day shrouded in the dull haze of regret and misplaced duty.
He could still see Adrian, standing amidst the crowd, a storm of emotion in his eyes as he tried to reach Logan.
Adrian’s voice had been raw, pleading, as he begged Logan to remember—to remember their love, their shared moments, the way they had held each other as though the world couldn’t touch them.
And then Adrian had kissed him. God, that kiss, it had been everything.
Adrian’s lips tasted like his sweetest memories, soft and firm, a claim and a plea all at once.
Logan had felt owned in that moment, utterly undone, as Adrian reminded him of what it meant to be kissed senseless, to be wanted, to be alive.
That kiss had lingered in Logan’s soul long after the ceremony ended, haunting him with its certainty, its truth.
Now, sitting in the dim glow of the bar, Logan’s chest tightened with a desperation he couldn’t contain.
He pulled out his phone, his fingers trembling as he opened the Facebook app.
He didn’t know what he was looking for; he only knew he needed to see Adrian, to find a glimpse of him, a digital echo of the man who had once been his entire world.
His breath caught with the need to search for that small glowing green dot, to see it next to Adrian’s name.
It was foolish, meaningless, and yet—if he saw it, it would mean Adrian was alive, breathing, existing in the same moment, even if an ocean stretched between them.
Even if Logan’s night sky was silvered by the moon while Adrian’s world burned golden beneath the sun.
Somewhere, they were both looking at the sky. Somewhere, they were both breathing the same air. Somewhere, they existed in the same gravity.