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Sunlight filtered through the sheer curtains, the soft, almost translucent fabric wavering softly in the gentle warm draft. The world outside of this room was serene. The soft chatter of French trickling from the streets below—the tranquil rustle of fan palms absentmindedly spilling through the window—the distant cheers from the Formula 1 grand prix. It was everything I wasn’t. Calm. Measured. Happy. It was everything I yearned to return back to. Everything I had lost stuck in this prison of my own thoughts.
The blankets laid heavy over my body, like some kind of plush cage, stitched from a time when Leo’s arms still cradled me through the night. It should have been comforting, familiar—but instead it pressed down with a cruel stillness, thick and unmoving; a weight I had no desire for, as though trying to convince me he was never really here at all. I sank deeper into the mattress, trying to breathe, trying not to remember how easily his warmth vanished without warning. Every thread felt like a reminder of how he used to tuck the edges in around me, how his body once filled the space now left untouched. It was absurd, how fabric could mimic security while suffocating you slowly. He was gone. Not dead, not unreachable—just gone, as if love had a switch and he’d simply flipped it off. My chest ached beneath the weight of it all, the unanswered questions, the quiet—his absence louder than any goodbye he never gave.
Summer in Monaco had already started. The warm air clung to my skin with that familiar heaviness, scented with salt and suncream, the kind that used to mean something. Boat rides, laughter echoing off the stone, my lover’s hand in mine. But now, even with the light pressing in from every window, I felt hollow. Empty in a way heat couldn’t touch. The sun burned, but it didn’t reach me. I carried a cold that had nothing to do with the weather, one that settled deep and stayed, untouched by memory, untouched by warmth.
My body rolled out of bed, feet dangling lazily off the side of the mattress, brushing against the bite of the cold morning tiles. Each step dragged. Painful. Far more draining than what was reasonable. Every step, every movement. It ached. It tore. Plagued me as if it were the ever-looming weight of his absence. I didn’t just miss him. I didn’t just want him. I needed him. I needed him more than anything else. And without him? I was nothing but a shell. A hollow, tender being of what once was.
My heart stammered in my chest, not from love. No. Not at all. This was hurt. Heartbreak. The highest emotional pain one could face. It was the feeling of need but not knowing what to do. The feeling of chasing something that was just ever so slightly out of reach. He was my everything. We were supposed to go to the end—to be with each other’s anchor in this world that held little love for people like us. But what was that all for? Years unravelled like thread, slipping through fingers that once held his. Salt-kissed summers adrift on empty yachts. Countless nights beneath the stars, whispering wishes that never came true. What was it all for? There was no point anymore—not when he abandoned me alone like this, left waiting at the door like some kind of foolish puppy.
I threw the photo across the room before I could stop myself, the frame hitting the wall with a hollow, final sound. Glass shattered outward in a constellation of jagged pieces, scattering across the floor like something sacred breaking apart. The picture—our picture—folded in on itself, its corners crumpling, Leo’s face bending as if it, too, couldn’t bear the weight of what we used to be. I stared at it through the blur of tears, chest heaving, as if destroying it might erase the nights, the laughter, the promise. But it didn’t. It only made it worse. It only made him feel farther away.
I stood there, trembling, every breath a struggle, like my body couldn’t decide if it was grieving or screaming. The photo still lay face down on the floor, shattered glass glittering cruelly in the sunlight like confetti for something that had died. My hands curled into fists. My chest burned. I didn’t want to feel it anymore—the ache, the love, the loss. I didn’t want to miss him. I wanted to tear him out of me.
I lunged for the frame, fingers closing around its splintered edge, his stupid smile still shining through the cracks like he hadn’t ruined everything. I threw it. Hard. It slammed against the wall with a sickening crunch. Glass exploded, the photo buckling, my heart torn.
Then I broke.
“I hate you,” I screamed, voice frayed and violent. “I hate you—I hate you—I hate you.” Again. Again. Like some sort of broken prayer to a god that never loved me back. My hands clawed at my chest like I could rip his name out of it, sobs hitting me in waves, choking, desperate. “I hate you…” My voice cracked. “I hate you so f--king much.” But it didn’t fix anything. I collapsed to my knees, surrounded by shards, the glass carving scarlet red scratches over my legs, my own breathing ragged and shallow. The words kept slipping out of me—quieter now, broken. “I hate you… I hate you…” But deep down, I knew I didn’t hate Leo. Not even close.
That was the worst part. I loved him so much; it was eating me alive. And he wasn’t here to see that. He wasn’t here to watch me convince myself that his actions didn’t hurt me so bad.
I couldn’t help but let my mind drift again—unwelcome, involuntary—back to those warm nights on his rooftop. Back when the world felt like it paused just for us, when the Monégasque sky was clearer than anywhere else, stars scattered like broken glass across velvet, and his voice sounded softer under the quiet. We’d lie there with our backs against sun-warmed stone, his fingers brushing mine like it wasn’t a big deal, like it didn’t mean everything. I remembered the way his curls would stick to his forehead after a swim, how the heat never seemed to bother him, how he always smelled faintly like coconut sunscreen or engine grease. His mouth tasted like chardonnay or mints or sometimes just him. It was addictive. I loved the way he touched me—like he didn’t know how to be careful, like he didn’t believe I’d ever break. He’d ramble about anything, and I’d stupidly laugh like it didn’t scare me how much I was falling for him.
But it did. It terrified me in ways I couldn’t name, because loving him wasn’t something the world forgave. It wasn’t something I could speak aloud in daylight or carry proudly in my chest. I gave up everything for him—slowly, silently. My name, my place at the table, the future that had been carved out for me since I was a boy. I let it all go. Business deals, the quiet weight of inheritance, the sharp-clawed comfort of status. I turned my back on the life that promised security, just to stay beside him a little longer. Just to keep loving him in the shadows, even if it meant losing everything else.
But he gave me up like it meant nothing. Like I hadn’t torn myself in two just to be his. As if love, once spoken, could be discarded. As if I hadn’t built my ruin around him.
I stared at the quiet around me, and for the first time, I understood it wasn’t going to change. The silence wasn’t temporary. He wasn’t coming back to fill it. I had already lost everything—my name, my future, the safety I once belonged to. I had thrown it all away, and I would’ve done it again, if it meant he’d stayed. But he didn’t. And if love was gone, what else was there? No purpose. No peace. Just this unbearable stillness, day after day. If I had already died for him in every other way, why not this too?
The hallway stretched long beneath my bare feet, each step echoing like it knew what I was about to do. The kitchen lights were off, pale sunlight curling across the counter. I opened the drawer slowly, fingers finding the handle like they had always meant to. My breath trembled. One last act. One final ache. One final thought of his hands. The knife plunged into my chest. And finally; everything was quiet.
— LEO POV —
My parents had banished me. Cast me out like a shameful secret, a mistake to be hidden away. ‘A pederast can’t uphold the image of our family!’ The words rung fresh in my head, as if I was hearing them for the first time. They forbade me from seeing the one I loved, from holding the hand that had once steadied my own. Their world was made of appearances and legacy, and I was supposed to forget what made my heart beat faster. But I never could. Never would.
I took the stairs two at a time, breath ragged and wild with anticipation. Every footfall echoed through the hollow building like a heartbeat racing toward the impossible. Weeks—no, months—since I’d last seen him, but it felt like a lifetime stretched across every empty hour. The silence between our last words had clawed into my bones, thick with things left unsaid. The letters went unanswered, telegrams returned unopened. But none of that mattered now. I was coming back. Had to come back.
My trembling hand brushed the doorframe, heart pounding so loud it threatened to drown out my thoughts. The faint scent of lavender and lemon oil—his scent—wrapped around me, a ghost clinging to the air. The knob was cold beneath my fingers as I twisted it open, stepping inside with a smile that was too fragile to hold.
“Baby?” My voice wavered, soft, hopeful.
The only answer I got was painful quiet.
But something was wrong. I could feel it. The way air shifted, thick and heavy, like the calm before a storm.
There, sprawled across the cold white tile, the broken shape of the man who held my soul. A dark stain spreading beneath him, crimson, creeping, and cruel. The knife—our knife—still buried deep between his ribs, a brutal punctuation to everything unsaid. My knees gave way.
“No…no, no, no,” the words broke free, raw and fractured, as I collapsed beside him. My hands were shaking uncontrollably as I pressed against the wound, desperate to stem the tide of scarlet spilling from the one I loved. “No, please—please—what happened? What did you do? What did I do? Don’t leave me—don’t leave me here alone.” My breath came ragged and broken, mingling with my sobs as I tried to hold time still. My fingers trembled as they searched for some way to make it right, but it was too late. The cold was already creeping in.
The weight of him in my arms was unbearable. The faint flicker of life beneath my touch seemed to weaken by the second. Then his eyes fluttered open—shimmering, glazed, full of a quiet pain that tore through me. Recognition. Love. Despair.
“I’m here,” I whispered, voice cracking under the weight of fear and hope. “I’m here, baby. I came back. Don’t—please don’t leave me. Don’t… please don’t die on me.”
A harsh, ragged cough broke the silence. Blood bubbled from his lips, staining the air between us. His head jerked forward in a faint, shuddering motion. Our eyes locked. One last, impossible moment. And then the words came—soft, broken, impossibly cruel.
“Do you hate me too…?”
They weren’t angry. They weren’t spiteful.
They were the shards of a shattered love, cutting deeper than any wound.
My heart shattered alongside them, the world slipping away into a hollow silence filled only with loss. What was I supposed to do without him? What was I supposed to do without my Max?