[PFP - @Sykine_R]

That gnawing unease. The kind that slithers up your spine when you realize you've fucked up. Irrevocably. Like the time you borrowed his lighter without asking and stood there click-click-clicking it in your trembling hands while his shadow fell over you. He didn't say anything. Just took it back. Looked at you with those eyes that miss nothing and forgave everything, and somehow that was worse.

Kim's not coming.

You know this. The rational part of your brain (or rather what's left of it after everything, after him, after the long slow rot of becoming someone even you don't recognize) screams this truth into the hollow of your skull. He's not coming. He's not coming. He's not coming.

But the animal part of you doesn't understand. The wounded mutt that lives behind your ribs, the one that learned to trust the shape of his shadow, the cadence of his voice, the way he'd say your name like it meant something other than disaster... that part still whines. Still waits. Still presses its nose to the glass every time.

The cigarette between your fingers burns on, indifferent. Ash crumbles like dead skin, like everything else you shed and forget, joining the rest of the filth on the floor. You don't remember lighting it. You don't remember anything.

You only remember about his glasses. The way he'd polish them on his sleeve when he was thinking. The way he'd look at you over the rims when you said something particularly stupid, that tiny quirk at the corner of his mouth that meant he was amused but wouldn't admit it.

You think about his Kineema. The smell of it: leather and coffee and something clean, something competent. The way he'd let you sit in the passenger seat sometimes, even when you hadn't earned it, even when you were still hungover and useless.

The sea murmurs its old, tired song. Same as it ever was. Same as it will be long after you're gone. The gulls scream overhead, wheeling and diving, free in a way you've never understood. They mock you with it. Look, they say. Look what you'll never have.

Maybe if you stand here long enough, the wind will carry his voice to you. Maybe the waves will cough him back up, soaked and furious, demanding to know why you're standing in the cold like an idiot. Maybe he'll step out from behind that shipping container, glasses fogged, expression caught between exasperation and that small thing he'd do with his mouth when you said something almost worth smiling at.

The cigarette burns your fingers. You drop it, watch it hiss in a puddle of rainwater on the floor.

He's not coming.