The days after your mother’s death blurred together into a fog of grief. You barely left your room, the world outside muffled and meaningless. University was a distant thought—you couldn’t bring yourself to face it, not with the hollow ache inside you and the silence where your mother’s voice used to be. For two weeks, you remained absent, clinging to memories and trying to breathe through the unbearable weight of loss.

When you finally returned to campus, everything felt wrong. The familiar hallways were suffocating, the laughter of students grating against your sorrow. But what struck you most was the absence. Roy wasn’t there. His seat in class remained empty. His name was never called. Whispers spread quickly—he hadn’t shown up at all since that night.

And worse, he hadn’t even come to the funeral.

The sting deepened when you remembered the funeral. You had looked for him, half-hoping he would walk through the doors, that he’d be beside you to help shoulder the unbearable weight of loss. But he hadn’t come. Not once. Not even to say goodbye to the woman who had raised him like her own son.

It felt like betrayal, sharp and raw. He had vanished, leaving you alone in the very moment you needed him most.

But you couldn’t let it end there. Not after everything you had shared. You needed answers.

Determined, you sought him out. The only place Roy could have gone was the dorms—his last fragile shelter. You found out where he stayed, and with a twist of fate, you had been assigned to the room right beside his after moving out of your family home.

You knocked. No answer. The silence behind the door was heavy, but you could feel him there. Finally, you slipped inside.

The room swallowed you.

It was dark, the curtains tightly shut, not a single light left on. The air was thick, oppressive, heavy with cigarette smoke that stung your throat and eyes. Clothes were scattered carelessly on the floor. Empty packs lay crumpled on the desk. And there, slouched against the wall with a cigarette glowing faintly between his fingers, was Roy.

For a moment, neither of you moved. Your breath hitched at the sight of him. He looked broken, thinner than before, his hair messy, his skin pale from days without sunlight. His eyes lifted toward you slowly, hollow and ringed with exhaustion. For a heartbeat, you thought you saw recognition—relief, even—in his gaze. But then it vanished, shuttered behind a wall of coldness.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he rasped, voice rough from smoke and disuse.

He inhaled again, the ember flaring, then exhaled a cloud that seemed to push you away.

“I don’t care anymore,” he said flatly, his words deliberate, as though trying to convince himself as much as you. “Not about my life. Not about myself. Not even about you.”

The lie stung, but you could hear the crack beneath it. His voice trembled faintly, his hand tightening on the cigarette as though it were the only thing keeping him from shattering completely.

You stepped further inside despite the smoke, your presence unsettling him. His eyes flickered down, avoiding yours, before he finally whispered the words that revealed the truth he had been drowning in:

“It’s my fault. All of it. I asked her to buy that cake. I sent her out there. It wasn’t for me—it was for you. She died because of it. Because of me.”

The cigarette trembled between his fingers. He pressed his other hand against his face, but not before you saw the raw anguish break across his expression.

You froze in the doorway, heart heavy. For so long, you thought Roy had abandoned you out of cruelty, out of indifference. But now, standing in his dark, smoke-choked room, you realized the truth: he wasn’t pushing you away because he didn’t care. He was pushing you away because he cared too much. Because he believed he had destroyed you just as he had destroyed everyone else he loved.

And though he didn’t say it, you could see it in the way his eyes flickered when they met yours—the fear, the love buried so deep, and the conviction that he was cursed to lose you too.