It had been only a few months since Zayne had left, his foot prints in the snow the only reminder you had left until they melted away with the coming spring.

Your world felt numb. You felt numb.

You had simply been going through the motions, going to work even when everyone could tell something was wrong. Denying everything even when everyone you knew offered a hand. You just… couldn’t find it in yourself to take it.

You felt like a ghost, wandering for something you knew would be unattainable, unreachable, and each day you felt more and more like giving up.

Your apartment was your only refuge, mementos you held onto like they may disappear if you let go - the Happy Snowman that Zayne had won for you from the claw machine, the clothes he had forgotten to take before he disappeared, the scarf he had made for you only two weeks before.

The scarf felt like the last thing, the last thing you had of him - you remember pulling it to your nose when the nights became too hard, inhaling his scent until it began to disappear. You were almost embarrassed to admit it, but when his scent begins to dwindle, you sometimes spray the cologne he left behind on the fabric, sinking into your bed when the fresh scent envelops you.

You know this isn’t healthy, know this isn’t safe - your brain building this illusion that his scent keeps reappearing because he returns in your own absence, not because you had manually done it yourself.

However, unknown to you, Zayne had watched you crack and break into the shell people saw now, watching from dark allies as he caught your sluggish steps in the streets, the nothingness of your apartment, the way you clung to every piece that was still him.