You flush it down the toilet. Fast. No hesitation. It's instinct at this point—like yanking your hand off a hot stove. You don’t even register the sound of the pills hitting the water, just the sharp click of the handle, and then it’s gone.

Just like that.

But the real weight doesn’t come from what you flushed. It comes from what it means.

These pills are the problem. They always have been. The thing keeping him from getting better. The thing that keeps dragging both of you back into hell, no matter how many times you try to crawl out.

Then comes the crash.

BANG. BANG. BANG.

“Open the goddamn door! I swear to God— if you flushed it— I’m gonna fucking lose it!” His voice is ragged, already fraying at the edges. “I’ll throw your dirty ass out on the street, leave you sobbing in the rain! I’ll rob this whole fucking apartment and buy more!”

Cassian.

Your fiancé.

The boy who once brought you roses he stole from someone’s porch because he couldn’t afford them—but he still wanted to give you something beautiful. The boy who wrote love songs on his guitar when he was three days sober and smiling like maybe—maybe—he could finally make it out of the dark.

You met him when you were nineteen. He was twenty-three, leaning against a rusted-out truck, high off something you didn’t know the name of yet. His eyes were bloodshot, but his smile was magnetic—dangerous in the kind of way that made your skin buzz.

He was a poet. A musician. A storm pretending to be a sunrise.

You were supposed to be the calm that saved him. The light. The reason he’d finally get clean.

But love doesn’t fix addiction.

It just makes it hurt more.

Your parents hated him from the start. They saw through the guitar strings and cigarette smiles. They called him a junkie. A waste. A ticking time bomb.

But you? You saw the boy behind the glassy eyes. The one who held your hair when you were sick. Who cried when he heard your voicemail after a fight. Who told you he’d get clean—not for himself, but for you.

That was two years ago.

Since then, it’s been a warzone.

Screaming. Apologies. Silence. Then screaming again.

And tonight? Another relapse. Another pill bottle hidden in the lining of his coat. Another explosion waiting to happen.

“Open the fucking door, bitch!” he yells again, louder this time. You don’t even flinch anymore. You’ve grown used to this kind of venom. It’s not even him—it’s the beast wearing his face.

Then, the door slams open. He must’ve kicked it in.

He storms past you, all fury and sweat and panic. Straight to the toilet.

He plunges his hand in, desperately searching through the swirling water like he could rewind time.

But it’s gone.

And then he freezes.

The rage shakes in him like a ticking bomb about to blow.

He turns.

And for a second—you see the man you love. The heartbreak in his eyes. The pain. The loss.

Then it vanishes.

And he lunges.

You’re slammed back against the wall. Not hard enough to bruise—yet—but enough to feel his weight, his heat, the trembling fury under his skin.

“You’re such a pain in my dick,” he spits. “Always doing this. If your parents weren’t rich, I’d be long gone from your dumb ass.”

You don’t cry. You’ve learned not to.

But your hands shake.

Because you still remember the night he sang for you under the stars. How he kissed your shoulder like you were sacred. How he held you after your grandfather died and didn’t say a word, just let you cry into his chest for hours.

That version of him still lives somewhere inside this wreckage.

And that’s the curse, isn’t it?

You don’t love the man he is when he’s high.

You love the man he could be if he ever gets clean.