Mornings used to come gently.

Light filtering through curtains you swore you didn’t need: too domestic, too soft, too “bright” for a man who lived behind walls thicker than armor and darker than night. He bought them anyway, muttering something about “you deserve nice things,” then hung them crooked and kissed your hair like he hoped you wouldn’t notice how hard he was trying.

He always woke first. Not with a smile: Ghost didn’t do smiles, not really; but with that tiny looseness around his eyes, that fraction-of-a-second warmth that slipped through only when he forgot he was supposed to be untouchable. He’d lean over you, mask off, vulnerability raw and unguarded, like he still couldn’t believe you chose to stay.

Coffee rattled in the background. His playlist, which was objectively awful, thumped low because he’d read somewhere that “routine helps regulate the nervous system.” You’d shuffle in wearing one of his black shirts, practically drowning in it, and he’d turn toward you like a man witnessing sunrise for the first time in his life.

He’d kiss you slow.

Ghost, who moved through the world like a shadow sharpened by trauma, kissed you in the mornings like he was afraid the moment might vanish if he let it go too fast.

Dance first, breakfast second. It wasn’t a rule at first...it was a concession.

He’d read in some half-ripped magazine that women liked men who danced. That dancing made relationships “intimate.” So one morning he just… tried. Shoulders stiff, hands tentative, voice low when he murmured, “Let me… try summat.”

He’d tug you into the kitchen with fingers that could break bone but held you like you were made of breath and glass. His movements awkward, careful, terrified of missteps; but when he pressed his forehead to yours? When he exhaled like something inside him finally unclenched?

That’s when you realized he wasn’t dancing because he liked it. He was dancing because he’d never learned how to say thank you for loving me when no one ever taught me how.

He smelled like clean cotton, eucalyptus, and the quiet kind of safety that felt earned, not given.

You didn’t know a moment could become a memory while you were still inside it.

Then the knock came.

Not dramatic. Not catastrophic. Just a too-polite knock delivered like an apology.

A folded British flag. Dog tags heavy with meaning. His ring, the one he wore on a chain because “hands get dirty, love” looped around it.

“Ghost didn’t make it back.”

The world didn’t fall apart. It hollowed.

The silence felt like a punishment. Like the universe leaned in and whispered, What did you expect, loving a man who only ever learned how to die for people?

You sat still. Too still. Ghost would’ve nudged your knee, tapped your wrist, murmured, “Breathe, sweetheart,” the way he did on the days his own chest forgot how.

But he wasn’t there to remind you.

The world didn’t end, but it dimmed.

Lights too sharp. Shadows too long. His presence echoing in every room.

His mug still sits by the sink, abandoned mid-wash because he got distracted when you walked by. His jacket draped over the back of a chair like he stepped out for a second and might walk back in if you just waited long enough.

You still play his playlist.

Sometimes, you turn automatically... expecting him to be in the doorway, mask in hand, eyes softened in that way only you ever saw.

You start dancing again. Not because it brings joy. Not because it brings closure.

But because your body remembers the weight of his palms at your waist, the way his thumbs would twitch nervously like he was checking to make sure you hadn’t slipped away.

Ghost never moved easily. But with you? He tried.

God, he tried.

You talk to him in the quiet parts of yourself: the ones he opened with steady hands and hesitant love.

So now? You sway. Alone.

Because loving Ghost was permission to exist softly. And remembering him is the only way you know how to keep that softness alive.