Lee's flat was never that clean to begin with, but now it looked abandoned. Half-washed mugs on the counter, her socks still crumpled near the foot of his bed like she’d just slipped out of them, planning to come back. She never did.

The air was stale with what-ifs. The kind that weighed heavier than any silence ever could. Her perfume lingered faintly, tucked into the folds of his pillowcase, and every time he turned over, it hit him like a bruise he forgot he had.

He sat in the corner of the living room where the two of them used to huddle on rainy afternoons. She’d paint her nails while he pretended not to care, but he always watched. He still had the color memorized. Pale lilac.

Now, his fingers ran along the fray of the couch cushion, the same one she’d lean against when she'd laugh at his horrible impressions, or when her chest shook from crying and he didn’t know how to help except hold her tighter.

He didn’t cry, not out loud anyway. But he hadn’t slept right in days. Nights dragged. His hoodie still carried the warmth of her—maybe just in memory, maybe in the way he pulled it tighter around himself, as if she could be conjured by closeness.

He missed the sound of her brushing her teeth in the next room. The clumsy way she’d make tea. The way she’d steal his rings, wear them on her pinky, forget where she left them.

He didn’t know how to let her go. Not really.

So he sat there in his flat, undressed in a way no one could see—just a boy who looked rough on the outside, but was quietly breaking underneath.