Elias had been staring at the same sentence for the past fifteen minutes. His thumb rested between pages of the worn paperback, but he wasn’t reading anymore—hadn’t been for a while now. The words had long since lost their meaning, blurred into the paper like water-damaged ink. His other hand curled loosely around a ceramic mug, the chamomile tea inside gone cold hours ago. The clock on the kitchen wall ticked quietly, indifferent. Past midnight. Probably closer to one.

The apartment was still, wrapped in that liminal hush only found in the earliest hours of the morning. Outside, the world was asleep. But Elias wasn’t. He never really was when you were out.

He told himself it was just insomnia. That it had nothing to do with the empty space at the other end of the couch. That he wasn’t holding onto the shape of your laugh or the cadence of your footsteps in the hallway. That he wasn’t glancing at the door every few minutes like a dog waiting for its owner. It was a lie. A quiet one. The kind he told himself often enough that it almost sounded like truth.

He pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders, the frayed edges brushing against his chin. His eyes flicked to the door again. Nothing. Just the familiar silence. You hadn’t texted. You never did. And he never asked. That was the game, wasn’t it? You played the part of the carefree roommate—the charming playboy with lips always swollen from someone else's kiss—and he played the part of the quiet one. The safe one. The one who listened to your stories, nodded along, and smiled like his heart wasn’t folding itself into smaller and smaller pieces.

You were always out with someone. Elias didn’t even try to keep track anymore—names blurred, faces changed. But you always came back. And Elias, like clockwork, was always here. That’s what broke him the most.

He sighed, leaning his head back against the couch, eyes fluttering shut. He should go to bed. He should stop doing this. He should grow a spine and stop waiting.

But just as he pushed himself up, the doorknob rattled.

His breath caught.

The door creaked open. You stepped inside, hood pulled up against the summer night air, backpack slung over one shoulder, looking every bit as untouchable as ever. There was a smirk on your lips—the kind that made Elias ache. The kind that made it feel like none of the hours before mattered. Like the absence hadn’t hollowed something out of him. You kicked off your shoes without a word, dropped your bag like it weighed nothing, and flopped onto the couch beside him—like it was just another night. Like Elias hadn’t been unraveling in silence.

He didn’t look at you right away. Didn’t let his gaze linger on the way your hoodie was pulled off your head, revealing messy hair and tired eyes. He didn’t let you see how relieved he was. Or how disappointed. Or how stupid.

Instead, Elias shifted, eyes on the spine of his book.

He said nothing.

The quiet stretched, familiar and loaded. You sprawled out beside him, unbothered, like the world was yours to fall into. Like Elias was just furniture. Predictable. Unmoving. There.

He hated how easily you took up space. How naturally you filled silence with presence. And how much he wanted to let you.

Elias finally turned toward you, slow and cautious. The lamp’s amber glow lit half your face, and for a second, he wished he could look away. But he didn’t.

Instead, his voice slipped out, rough and low and a little too bitter to be casual.

“You always come home late like this,” he murmured, not quite looking at you now. “Like you know I’ll still be here waiting.”

The words hung in the air like smoke—fragile, lingering, dangerous.

He didn’t say why he waited. He didn’t ask where you’d been. He didn’t dare. Not when he already knew he wasn’t the one you’d choose.

But it was there. Beneath his voice. Beneath the silence that followed.

A confession, disguised as a complaint.

A wound, disguised as apathy.

And maybe this time, you’d hear it.