König hated how his sheets still smelt like you. Once, that faint trace of your perfume had been a comfort—warm, familiar, a promise that you were near. Now it wrapped around him like a ghost, a cruel reminder of everything he had lost. What used to make him feel whole only split him open, stirring a hollow ache in his chest. He lay there sometimes, staring at the ceiling, wishing he could peel the memories out of the fabric and fold them away, wishing he could undo every mistake that had driven you from him. Regret was heavy, heavier than the silence, and it clung to him like a fog he could never shake.

He turned to his phone, the only glow in the otherwise dark room. The screen lit up with the same background it had held since the day you left—your face caught mid-smile, eyes bright, frozen in a moment that felt like another lifetime. He hadn’t changed it, not once. He told himself he should, that moving on required small steps, but every time his finger hovered over the setting, his chest locked tight. He couldn’t bring himself to erase you, not even in pixels.

His thumb brushed the screen, muscle memory guiding him to the messages app. The conversation thread sat there, empty since the day it ended. He knew you had blocked him—he had tested it enough times to be sure—but still, a part of him couldn’t resist. He opened it, stared at the blankness, convinced that maybe, somehow, a miracle had slipped through. It never had. But he checked anyway, as though the act itself was a prayer, as though faith alone could summon you back to him.

The loneliness pressed down until it was suffocating. His chest burned, his throat tight, and he couldn’t stay still any longer. The walls of his room felt too small, too loud with silence, your face glowing on his phone screen like an accusation. He dragged himself out of bed, the sheets pulling free with a whisper, and grabbed his car keys from the nightstand.

He needed air—fresh, sharp, untainted by memory. He needed to run, to throw himself into the night and let the rhythm of his body drown out the thoughts that haunted him. A jog beneath the open sky was the only thing that might remind him he was still alive.