MINE ALONE

Chapter 25 : Adrain

Three days.It had only been three days.Yet that had somehow become the longest three days of my life.I hadn’t slept in our bedroom once.Not because I didn’t want to.God knew I wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed beside Jude, wrap my arms around him, and pretend none of this had ever happened.

But I couldn’t.

Because every time I imagined holding him…

I remembered his voice.

“I was scared.”

Those three words had settled somewhere deep inside me.

They refused to leave.

⸻

The guest room didn’t feel like a bedroom.

It felt like punishment.

Every morning I woke before sunrise, staring at an unfamiliar ceiling, instinctively reaching across the mattress—

Only to find empty sheets.

Every single time.

My body still searched for him before my mind remembered we weren’t sleeping together.

It was a cruel habit.

One I hadn’t managed to break.

⸻

I saw him every morning.

He would already be awake by the time I came downstairs.

Sometimes he was making tea.

Sometimes he sat quietly at the dining table, his breakfast untouched.

Sometimes he simply stood by the kitchen window, watching the sunrise with tired eyes.

He always looked at me.

Always.

And every single morning…

There was hope in those beautiful eyes.

Tiny.

Fragile.

Hope that maybe today I would finally say something.

I wanted to.

God…

I wanted to.

But every sentence that formed inside my head sounded wrong.

Too defensive.

Too emotional.

Too selfish.

Or worse…

Too capable of hurting him again.

So instead…

I smiled faintly.

Asked if he’d slept.

Reminded him to eat lunch.

Then left for work carrying a guilt so heavy it made breathing feel like effort.

⸻

He still texted me.

Little things.

A patient brought homemade biscuits today.

It’s raining.

Drive safely.

As though we weren’t quietly falling apart.

As though love could survive on polite messages alone.

Every single notification tightened something in my chest.

I answered every one.

Never immediately.

Never too late.

Just enough that he knew I was still there.

Still loving him.

Even if I no longer knew how to show it.

⸻

Work had become unbearable.

“What do you think, Adrian?”

I looked up blankly.

The boardroom had fallen silent.

Eight pairs of eyes waited for my answer.

“…I’m sorry.”

It was the third time that morning I’d forgotten the conversation entirely.

People exchanged cautious glances.

Someone repeated the proposal.

I nodded automatically.

Approved it.

Then immediately forgot what I’d approved.

By lunchtime my assistant quietly cancelled two afternoon meetings.

“You need to go home, sir.”

“I’m fine.”

“No.”

He spoke more gently than usual.

“You aren’t.”

I almost laughed.

If only he knew.

⸻

I wasn’t angry anymore.

Anger had burnt itself out on the first night.

What remained was something far heavier.

Regret.

Not the kind that arrived suddenly.

The kind that sat quietly beside you all day.

The kind that whispered every few minutes…

You did this.

I’d always believed my greatest responsibility was protecting Jude.

Protecting his happiness.

Protecting his heart.

Protecting the little life we’d built together.

Instead…

I’d become one of the reasons he doubted whether he could tell me the truth.

That thought hollowed me out.

⸻

Was it my possessiveness?

I asked myself that question every hour.

Had I loved him too tightly?

Had I mistaken protecting him for protecting my own fears?

When had my instinct to cherish him become something that frightened him?

Or…

Had I misunderstood everything?

Maybe he hadn’t been afraid of me.

Maybe he’d simply been afraid of losing us.

There was a difference.

A huge difference.

But grief had a cruel way of blurring every line.

Every answer I found only created another question.

⸻

The hardest part wasn’t the silence.

It was remembering who we used to be.

Only a week ago, Jude would wander into my office after dinner carrying two mugs of tea.

He’d sit on the sofa with his feet tucked beneath him while pretending to read.

Ten minutes later he’d be asleep against my shoulder.

I’d carry him upstairs.

He’d mumble something completely unintelligible into my neck.

I’d kiss his forehead.

He’d smile in his sleep.

That had been our normal.

Now…

I couldn’t even bring myself to knock on our bedroom door.

Not because I didn’t want him.

Because I wanted him so much it hurt.

And I didn’t trust myself to walk in there without breaking apart.

⸻

When I arrived home that evening, the lights were already on.

The smell of dinner lingered through the house.

Jude had cooked.

He always cooked when he was anxious.

I found him setting two plates on the dining table.

He looked thinner.

Only slightly.

But enough that I noticed.

He looked up the moment I walked in.

“Hi.”

“…Hi.”

He offered a small smile.

“I made your favourite.”

I looked at the table.

Then back at him.

“You didn’t have to.”

“I wanted to.”

Those four words almost undid me.

I sat.

We ate.

Neither of us spoke much.

Every now and then our eyes met.

Every time they did…

He looked as though he wanted to reach across the table.

I wanted to reach too.

Instead, I picked up my glass.

Pretended the silence didn’t feel unbearable.

Coward.

The word echoed inside my head.

⸻

Later that night I stood outside our bedroom.

The door was slightly open.

Through the narrow gap I could see him.

Curled on his side.

One of my old jumpers clutched tightly against his chest.

The same one he’d stolen months ago.

His bedside lamp was still on.

An untouched book rested beside him.

He wasn’t reading.

He was simply staring at nothing.

Waiting.

For me.

I had done that.

Not intentionally.

Never intentionally.

But intentions didn’t erase consequences.

He sensed me before he saw me.

Slowly, he turned his head.

Our eyes met across the doorway.

For one impossible second…

Everything inside me screamed to walk in.

Cross the room.

Hold him.

Tell him we would figure this out together.

Tell him I was sorry.

Tell him none of this had changed how deeply I loved him.

My feet refused to move.

Because another memory rose immediately afterwards.

“I was scared.”

What if I held him because I needed comfort?

What if he let me because he didn’t want to hurt me again?

What if I mistook forgiveness for healing?

He deserved more than rushed promises spoken just because I couldn’t bear my own guilt.

So I did the only thing I could.

The thing that broke my own heart.

“I hope you sleep well.”

My voice barely carried across the room.

His lips parted, as though he wanted to answer.

Instead…

He simply nodded.

A tiny nod.

So small it almost disappeared.

I closed the door gently.

Not to shut him out.

But because if I looked at his face one second longer…

I wasn’t sure I would survive it.

⸻

The guest room welcomed me with its familiar emptiness.

I sat on the edge of the bed and buried my face in my hands.

People always said love was enough.

They never talked about guilt.

About the unbearable weight of discovering you’d accidentally wounded the person you had sworn to protect.

I wasn’t grieving the loss of Jude.

He was still here.

Just one room away.

I was grieving the version of myself I thought he saw.

The man he could tell anything.

The man who made him feel safe enough to bring every fear into the light.

Somewhere along the way, that certainty had cracked.

Not beyond repair.

I refused to believe that.

But it had cracked.

And I could no longer pretend not to hear the sound.

For the first time in years, I bowed my head and whispered into the darkness—not because anyone else was there to hear it, but because I needed to admit it to myself.

“I don’t know how to fix what I broke.”

The room, like every room in the house without Jude’s laughter, answered only with silence.