A/N heavy gasp immmmm backkkk. Did you miss me because I missed you. Just a heads up this story will not end happy.
Warning: this is fanfiction. Cursing and angst.
The afternoon sun slanted through the blinds, casting long, dusty stripes across the living room floor. The only sounds were the distant hum of traffic and the rhythmic, heavy thump of Noah’s boots as he moved around his bedroom. I was curled on the couch, pretending to read a book, but my eyes kept drifting toward the hallway where his duffel bag lay open, a dark mouth ready to swallow him whole for three months. The air already felt different, thinner, like he was slowly being erased from the space around me.
"Hey," his voice called out, rougher than usual. "Can you come here for a sec?"
My stomach tightened. It wasn't the warm, easy tone he usually used. This was clipped, business-like. I dog-eared my page and walked down the hall, stopping in his doorway. He was standing with his back to me, rifling through a stack of t-shirts in his closet, his shoulders a rigid line of tension. He didn't turn around.
"I need to talk to you," he said to the wall of clothes.
"Okay," I whispered, my heart starting to pound against my ribs. "Everything alright?"
He finally turned, and the look on his face was one I’d seen a few times before, but never directed at me. It was the look he got before a particularly hard show, or when he was trying to let someone down easy from the label. It was closed off, pained, and utterly final. He ran a hand through his already messy hair, avoiding my eyes.
"No," he said, his voice cracking on the single word. "No, it's not." He took a deep breath, and the words came out in a rush, like he was ripping off a bandage. "I don't think I can do this. I don't think I can handle a relationship on the road. Not this time."
The floor seemed to drop out from under me. The striped sunlight on the hardwood blurred. "What?" It was a stupid, useless word, the only one I could form. "But we talked about this. We said we'd make it work. You said you wanted me to fly out.”
"I know what I said," he cut in, his voice strained. He finally looked at me, and his eyes were full of a desperate apology that was somehow worse than anger. "And I meant it. I thought I could. But I'm just looking at this bag, and I'm thinking about all the cities, and the late nights, and the pressure and I can't. I can't ask you to wait around for me while I'm off doing all this. It's not fair to you."
He stepped closer, his hands reaching out to grab my arms, his grip firm but not painful. "It's not fair to me either. I need to be 100% in this, for the band. My head needs to be in the game, and I know if I'm out there worrying about you, worrying about us. I'll screw it up. I'll be a shitty boyfriend and a shitty frontman. I can't be either of those things."
Each word was a carefully aimed punch. I could see the logic in it, the cold, practical sense of his reasoning, but it didn't stop the sharp, searing pain that was radiating through my chest. He was preemptively breaking my heart to save himself the trouble later. He was choosing the tour over me. He was choosing himself.
"So that's it?" I managed to say, my voice shaking. "You're just ending it? Just like that? Before you've even left?"
His face crumpled. "God, no, don't say it like that. It's not 'just like that.' This is the hardest thing I've had to do in a long time." He let go of my arms, his hands dropping to his sides as if they were too heavy to hold up. "But yeah. Yeah, I guess it is. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."
He turned back to his bag, grabbing a handful of shirts and shoving them inside, a frantic, messy energy taking him over. The conversation was over. He had said his piece. I stood there in the doorway of his room, watching the man I love pack his bags while throwing me away with his old t-shirts he no longer wants. The silence that fell between us was heavier than any of the words he'd just spoken, filled with the sound of zippers and the final, crushing thud of a future that was never going to happen.
The first tear was a betrayal, a hot, salty drop that escaped before I could even register the emotion behind it. It traced a path down my cheek, and I wiped it away angrily with the back of my hand, as if I could physically erase the hurt. But then another followed, and another, until a silent, steady stream was flowing. I wasn't sobbing, not yet. It was worse than that. It was a quiet, hollow collapse, the sound of a dam breaking inside me with no one to hear it but the man who had just detonated the charge.
Noah stopped his frantic packing. The sound of his movements ceased, and the silence that filled the room was suddenly deafening, broken only by the ragged sound of my breathing. I could feel his eyes on me, but I couldn't look at him. I stared at the worn floorboards, at the dusty stripes of sunlight, at anything but the source of this agony. I felt his hand hover near my back, hesitant and unsure, before he let it fall to his side again.
"Don't," I choked out, the word barely audible. "Don't touch me." I finally lifted my head, my vision swimming. "Please don't touch me."
He looked wrecked, his own eyes glistening, but his hands remained clenched at his sides. "I'm sorry," he whispered again, the words useless and hollow. "I'm so sorry, baby."
The endearment, the one he knew was my undoing, was the final blow. It shattered what little composure I had left. A raw, broken sob tore from my throat, and I covered my face with my hands, my shoulders shaking with the force of it. I cried for the future that was now gone, for the promises that didn’t mean anything, and for the boy I loved who was standing right in front of me but was already gone.
My sobs subsided into ragged, hitching breaths, the energy completely drained from my body. I stood there, motionless, a statue carved from grief, as Noah watched me. His face was a mask of torment, the apology in his eyes warring with a desperate need to escape the scene he had created.
Finally, he moved. Not toward me, but to the duffel bag on the floor. He zipped it up with a sharp, definitive pull, the sound echoing like a gunshot in the suffocating silence of the room. He grabbed his guitar case from the corner, his movements stiff and robotic. He was methodical now, a man completing a grim task. He slung the bag over his shoulder and picked up his guitar, his keys jangling softly in his hand.
He paused at the doorway. Then he was gone. I heard his heavy footsteps retreat down the hall, the soft click of the front door, and the definitive thud of it closing behind him.
The silence that rushed in to fill the space he left was absolute. It was heavier than sound, a physical weight pressing down on me. The room suddenly felt cavernous and cold. The striped sunlight on the floor seemed to mock me, highlighting the empty space where his bag had been, the empty space where he had stood. I sank to my knees on the hardwood floor, the world tilting violently, and pressed my forehead against the cool wood. He hadn't just left the room. He had erased our entire world, and I was left alone in the rubble.
I don't know how long I stayed there on the floor, my cheek pressed against the cool, unforgiving wood. Time had lost its shape, stretching into a single, endless moment of pain. The sun shifted, the stripes of light crawling across the floor like a spider but I didn't move. The air in the room grew stale, thick with the scent of his cologne and the taste of my own tears.
Eventually, a different kind of pain began to register a deep, aching stiffness in my knees and back. The cold seeped through my jeans, a sharp, physical reminder of the world outside my grief. With a monumental effort, I pushed myself up, my body trembling. I felt ancient, hollowed out.
My eyes fell on the spot where his bag had been. The floor was scuffed there, a faint, semi-circular mark from where it had rested. It was the only evidence he'd been there at all, aside from the gaping wound in my chest. I stumbled out of his room, my hand trailing along the wall for support. The whole apartment felt wrong, alien. The living room was too quiet, the kitchen too clean. Everywhere I looked, I saw the absence of him.
My gaze landed on the couch, on my abandoned book. Next to it, on the end table, was his coffee mug, a dark ceramic one with a chip on the rim that he always used. He must have made coffee before he started packing. I reached out and touched it. It was cold. So cold.
That small, mundane detail was what finally broke me completely. The cold coffee. The unfinished morning. It was the proof that life had been happening, normal and sweet, just an hour ago. And now it was over. A guttural, sound tore from my throat as I swept the mug off the table. It shattered against the hardwood, the pieces exploding across the floor like tiny, sharp stars. I stood amidst the wreckage, my chest heaving, my hands shaking. I was alone in the silence, surrounded by the pieces of a life that was no longer mine.
The sound of my own ragged breathing was the only thing that broke the silence. I stared down at the ceramic shards scattered across the floor, glittering like tiny, cruel stars in the fading light. For a moment, I had the insane urge to drop to my knees and try to piece it back together, to find every fragment and glue them into some semblance of a whole. But I knew it would be useless. It would always be broken.
My gaze drifted past the wreckage, past the couch, to the small bookshelf tucked in the corner of the living room. And there they were. Tucked between a dog-eared novel and a stack of vinyl records was the bag of candles he'd bought for me. It was a stupid, sentimental thing we'd laughed about. "So you don't forget what home smells like," he'd said, his voice light and teasing, just last week. "Burn one every night. Then you can imagine I'm there."
A fresh wave of nausea rolled through me. The memory was so vivid, so full of a warmth that now felt like a searing brand against my skin. I walked over to the shelf on legs that felt like they belonged to someone else. I pulled the bag out. It was crinkly and full, a promise of fifty nights of comfort he was never going to keep. I could smell the faint, sweet scent of vanilla and sandalwood through the plastic.
I looked from the bag of candles in my hand to the broken mug on the floor. One was a promise of presence, the other the proof of absence. The irony was so sharp, so brutal, it almost made me laugh. Instead, a choked sob escaped my lips. I clutched the bag to my chest, the plastic crinkling loudly in the quiet room, and sank to the floor amidst the sharp, glittering pieces of the mug. I was surrounded by the ghosts of our life together the coffee he'd never finish, the candles he'd never see burn, the home that was no longer a home. I was holding a future that had been cancelled, and I didn't know how to let it go.
The floor was cold against my skin, the sharp edges of the ceramic mug digging into my palms. I clutched the bag of candles, a tangible link to the life that had just been amputated. The silence in the apartment was a physical presence, a crushing weight that was suffocating me. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. All I could do was feel the gaping, raw hole where my future used to be.
My phone was on the coffee table, its screen dark. It felt like a mile away. With a groan, I pushed myself up, my body aching in protest. I stumbled toward it, my fingers fumbling as I picked it up. The screen lit up, blinding in the dim room, and my thumb hovered over his name in my contacts. It was still there, right at the top of my favorites list. Noah ❤️.
My vision blurred with fresh tears as I pressed the button. I didn't even think about what I was going to say. I just needed to hear his voice, or at least the sound of his voicemail picking up. The phone rang once, twice, three times. Each ring was a tiny hammer blow against my ribs. Then, it clicked.
"You've reached Noah. Leave a message."
The sound of his voice, even the cool, distant recorded version, was like a match to a gasoline-soaked rag. The dam broke completely.
"Noah," I sobbed, the word torn from my throat. "Noah, please. Please pick up. I know you're not going to get this until later but God, Noah, please don't do this. Please don't leave me." My words were a torrent, a desperate, pathetic stream of consciousness. "I know you said you can't handle it, but we can figure it out. We can. I can be better. I won't be needy, I swear. I can handle it. Just call me. Please just call me and we can talk about this. You can't just you can't just end it like that. Not over packing. Not with a stupid bag and a... a sorry. It's not fair. It's not fair. I love you. I love you so much, and I know you love me too, you said you did, you said it just last night. Please, Noah. Please don't go. Please don't leave me here alone. I'll do anything. I'll wait forever, I don't care. Just... just don't go. Please... please..."
I trailed off into incoherent weeping, the phone slick with my tears. I must have stood there for a full minute, just sobbing into the receiver, before the automated voice cut in. "To delete this message, press 7. To save it, press 9." I fumbled, my thumb slipping, and hit a button. The call ended.
I stared at the screen, at the duration of the call: 2:47. Two minutes and forty-seven seconds of pure, undignified begging. A wave of hot shame washed over me, so intense it almost eclipsed the grief. I had just laid every last shred of my dignity at his feet, and he wouldn't even hear it until he was hundreds of miles away, already gone. I threw the phone onto the couch, and it bounced onto the floor, landing screen-down, as if it couldn't bear to witness my humiliation either. I was truly, completely alone.
turnnoffyourmind
dededos
kianamaiart
ellievsbear
titsay
blakekathryn
jbbartram-illu
snowghoul
yousharknotpass
annaxmalina
