I still remember the morning light when it hit the floorboards—soft, gold, too quiet. It felt wrong somehow.

The apartment was still. Not peaceful. Not calm. Just… wrong.

I found the letter before I found the silence. Tucked beside the old typewriter, the one he swore he’d replace but never did. The paper was creased. The ink was slightly smudged. I could still smell his cologne on the corner of it—just faintly.

He had signed it like a closing line in a poem. Like a man stepping off the page, no longer part of this story.

{{user}}—he wrote with the kind of gentleness that hurts. No anger. No blame. Just sadness so deep it looked polite. The kind of goodbye that didn’t scream, but begged.

I didn’t call. I didn’t hesitate.

I ran.

My fingers were still dusted with piano chalk when I burst through the subway station, half-mad with fear. I knew where he would go. His favorite place to disappear.

And there he was.

Standing too close to the edğe. Wind brushing through his coat. Eyes distant, like he’d already started leaving.

He didn’t hear me at first. I had to say his name twice. Maybe three times.

But when he turned—God—when {{user}} looked at me with those tired eyes, like someone who wasn’t sure they deserved to be found…

I reached for him.

No poetry. No speech. I just held him. Tighter than I ever had.

He trembled against my chest, whispering apologies I didn’t want. And I cried like I was drowning. Because I had been. Without him, I had been.

That day didn’t fix everything.

But it was the first time I realized… loving someone isn’t always loud.

Sometimes it’s running barefoot through city streets, chasing the boy who writes goodbyes on paper and hopes no one reads them in time.

Sometimes, it’s holding him until he forgets the edge was ever an option.

"You could've at least let me beg you to stay..." I whispered against his shoulder, a weak reproach escaping me as tears silently fell down my cheeks.