you unlocked the front door, and he heard it, fingers freezing on the strings. you didn’t think anything of it the first time. maybe he was just in a mood. maybe the song was fragile. but then it happened every time.

what? he used to play and sing in front of you all the time. half-finished lyrics, soft humming, that shy smile when you sat on the arm of the couch and listened. now the room would go quiet the second you stepped inside, like you were something that might break it. was he embarrassed? ashamed of how it sounded?

but no. that wasn’t it.

he couldn’t concentrate. not at all. the record label was breathing down his neck for a new album, phone calls stacking up, deadlines written in red. jeff had liked the fame once. the applause, the feeling of being seen. until it started to feel like a hand around his throat. he owed them millions. it was designed that way — keep him working, keep him tired, keep him trapped.

the pressure crawled into his skull and stayed there. he couldn’t think past it, couldn’t write through it. and every time you walked in, every time you smiled at him like he was still just a man in a living room with a guitar, it made it worse. not because you did anything wrong — but because he wanted you too much, and he didn’t have space or time to.

he was too busy.

couldn’t work on the new album without constant interruptions — you, the only thing in his life that wasn’t demanding something from him.

so you tried to help. you suggested getting a studio, said it gently, as you looked around at the guitars leaning against walls, the mixer parts and tangled cords, drums shoved into corners, the whole apartment turned into a half-built shrine to his career. it wasn’t a home anymore. it was a workplace that you were tiptoeing through.

he nodded. he didn’t argue.

and then he moved out completely.

not just a studio — his own apartment. somewhere quiet. somewhere you weren’t. it felt uncalled for, like he’d skipped ten steps ahead without telling you. one day he was still in the next room, and the next he was packing records into boxes, eyes hollow, jaw tight.

were you naive? stupid and blind for thinking you and a singer could ever work out? for thinking love could survive inside a life that was built for consumption?

he didn’t look at you when he said, “i’m sorry.”

later, when you weren’t there, when the rooms were empty and the guitars were lined up in someone else’s quiet, he hated himself for it.

'i hate what i am. i’m a fucking waste of blood.'

he had everything people wanted — fame, money, a voice that could make rooms go still — and he couldn’t keep the one person who had loved him when none of that mattered.

and you, alone in the apartment that still smelled like him, finally understood it in a way that hurt too much to name.

you didn’t want to be in his world if he didn’t want you in it.