It was never simple. But God, he loved him. Loved him like it was the only thing keeping him alive. He loved him through the wreckage, through the hoping, through the rules that said they could touch but never dream.

He thought it was building toward something. He believed it was. Until the truth came uninvited, slipping through the cracks like cold air in winter.

"I could never marry him. I want to have a family of my own."

"If only loving him wasn’t a sin."

It wasn’t said to him. That’s what made it worse. It wasn’t a conversation, or a goodbye. It was something overheard in a voice too calm for heartbreak. And just like that, the whole story collapsed.

Months passed like slow poison. He tried to move on, but the weight stayed. Then the wedding invitation came. His name was on it like a cruel joke. Best man. Like the past hadn’t broken every part of him.

Still, he went.

The church was warm. Full of flowers and faces that didn't know his. The bride walked in glowing, soft, everything he could never be. He remembered meeting her once, before it all crumbled. She had smiled at him like she didn’t know she was already winning.

He gave the speech. Voice steady, hands cold. Laughed in the right spots. Didn't flinch when he said the groom was the best man he'd ever known. No one noticed the pause. No one heard what he didn’t say.

And then—after the vows, after the cheers, after the ending he never got—he looked at him one last time.

Just a stare. But it was everything.

It was thank you. It was I'm sorry. It was I loved you in a way I was never brave enough to show the world. And it was goodbye.

That was the moment he let go.

Outside, the rain came hard. He stood under it, drenched, cigarette in hand, but no lighter. Of course. It was that kind of night. The kind that strips you bare just to see what’s left underneath.

Then you came. No words. Just an umbrella over both your heads. A flame offered without question. And when he looked at you, really saw you—

You looked just like him. But as a woman.