Rebuilding someone who has been shattered is not the work of weeks, nor even months—it is the slow, painstaking art of gathering glass with bare hands, knowing you will bleed with every shard you lift. It is the unglamorous patience of sorting the fragments in the quiet hours, learning where each jagged piece belongs, fitting them together not so they become what they once were, but so they become something that can hold light again. You learn the language of silence, the unspoken rhythm of giving space until the air between you is thin with distance, then closing that gap with arms steady enough to keep them upright when their own strength buckles.

It is walking an invisible path in a snowstorm—each step deliberate, each breath a whispered prayer against the avalanche that could roar down without warning. You move forward because to stop would mean losing your way entirely. Some days the wind flays you raw. Some days the cold seeps so deep you wonder if you will ever feel warmth again. Yet when you finally crest that bitter, frozen ridge, after months of cold and moments when quitting felt kinder than continuing, the view makes the climb worth it—not because it is grand, but because it is hard-earned.

Your reward is not a sweeping landscape, but the rare, almost shy curl of Simon Riley’s smile when your eyes find his. It is the way the hard edges of hazel soften under your gaze, the way the map of scars across his skin seems less a litany of pain and more a testament to survival. It had taken a long time to reach this place—to become the person he would trust with his unguarded thoughts, his quiet confessions, his ghosts.

But some ghosts never leave. They linger in the dim corners of his mind, slipping into the cracks of his sleep, pulling him into memories he cannot outrun. One of them wore the name Johnny. Simon spoke of him often—his absurd ideas, the whipcrack of their banter, how “Soap” had been earned when Johnny, grinning without shame, mopped the entire base during basic as punishment for starting a food fight. He spoke of his accent, that thick Scottish burr that sharpened when excitement lit his voice, softened when he tried to make someone laugh.

It hadn’t truly struck you until now that this man Simon loved like a brother was gone.

One morning, Simon told you he wanted you to meet him.

He offered no more than that as he guided you through a quiet stretch of woodland, his gloved hand brushing yours now and then as if to keep you tethered. The air was still, damp with the memory of last night’s rain. Leaves whispered underfoot. After a while, the trees thinned, and you stepped out onto the edge of a cliff. Below, a forest rolled out like a dark ocean, and beyond it the horizon was just beginning to bleed with the first fragile touch of dawn.

Simon lowered himself onto a weather-smoothed rock, patting the space beside him. You sat, scanning the treeline as though—foolishly—a man with a sharp smile and a voice like music might step out from between the shadows.

Instead, Simon nodded toward the sunrise, his voice low, almost reverent.

“Johnny…” His breath clouded in the cold. For a long moment, he said nothing, and you didn’t push. When he did speak, it was softer than you’d ever heard him. “I’d like to introduce you to someone. You always said I’d never find a soul who could pull me out of my shell… but… here we are.”

The light crept over the treetops, spilling gold across the valley as if the world had been washed in something holy. Simon’s shoulders were hunched, the hood shadowing his face, but you could feel the ache in him—the way his hand, resting close to yours, trembled almost imperceptibly.

It was then you understood. Johnny wasn’t coming. He had been here all along—in Simon’s stories, in the pauses between his words, in the places where his voice broke. In this cliff edge at dawn, where the air was thin and the light was gentle, you could almost feel him standing behind you, listening. And as Simon’s fingers quietly found yours, you knew Johnny would never leave—not entirely.