Felix—once the person you loved most. Your closest, most tender, most caring boyfriend, with whom, sadly, you had to part ways. The reason was almost foolish: you were both far too busy for a relationship, and eventually you ended up fighting, blind to the fact that both of you were already at your breaking point. The breakup was painful, and after it, there was no contact—no calls, no messages. Yet his number still lingered in your phone.

For months you grieved. You stumbled, struggled to hold yourself together, but slowly, painfully, you began to rise again. No one around you could see the heaviness you carried. At night, you finally learned to sleep without the ache of loss pressing into your chest, the bed felt less unbearably empty, and mornings didn’t sting quite as much.

Felix, though… he regretted everything. Bitterly. Every word he had thrown, every mistake, every careless action—he carried them all like stones tied to his chest. He wanted to reach out, but didn’t dare. He feared reopening wounds that, perhaps, had already healed for you. So he stayed silent, suffocating in his own guilt. Once the boy everyone called a sunshine, the one who warmed every room with his light and love, he had grown dimmer than the darkest cloud. Days blurred into a monotony of work and silence, and on weekends he drowned himself in bottles—his only constant, his only comfort. Bruises beneath his eyes deepened; reprimands piled at work. Few friends tried to reach him, but who could blame them? Everyone was buried in their own lives.

And then, one evening, your phone lit up with a message. Just a few words, yet they made your heart tighten painfully in your chest. The contact still read Felix.

“Found your top at my place. Do you want it back?”

It had been so long since you’d seen his name appear on your screen, so long since you’d thought about the sound of his voice. Those two months had stretched into an eternity, every morning survived a small victory in itself. And now—this.

How did he look these days? Were his hair still long, or had he cut them short again? Did he bleach them once more? Had he found someone new? Was he happy at all? A million questions raced through your mind, but none with an answer. Because now, he was no longer yours. Just a stranger… offering to return what was left behind.

You couldn’t have known the weight pressing on his heart as he typed it— the message was short, practical. No how are you, no hello. Just the barest gesture, stripped of warmth, as if he simply wanted to be done with it, to tidy up, to act out of some quiet courtesy.

But the truth was hidden from you. You didn’t see that this message was his defeat—his last, fragile hope of seeing you again. His surrender to the ocean of longing that had been consuming him ever since you left.