I woke up alone.
Not in the abandoned kind of way.
Just in the something's stirring kind of way.
The apartment was quiet.
Too quiet.
Then I saw it.
A folded sheet of paper on my pillow.
My name—
Kade—written across it.
And beneath it, a ring from the chain around Jesse's neck.
Not the collar.
Just the key ring I gave him, where he'd kept his house key since we moved in.
---
I opened the letter.
His handwriting was sharp. Slanted. A little angry even when it wasn't trying to be.
But the words?
They bled.
---
Kade,
I don't know how to say this without fucking it up, so I'm writing it.
Last night, when my father left, I stayed awake watching the ceiling and wondering why it still hurt after all this time.
Why he still had power over me.
And I realized—it wasn't about him.
It was about me.
How much of myself I gave up waiting to be enough.
How many years I spent making other men bleed because I didn't know how to cry.
You met me at my worst.
And still somehow made me want to become someone better.
Not for you.
With you.
This key you gave me—it's more than a way inside the door.
It's a reminder.
That I don't have to be on the outside anymore.
So if I'm not home when you read this, I'm not gone.
I'm out buying paint.
Because I want our bedroom to feel like a place where no one's ever walked out.
Only walked toward.
I love you.
I'm still learning how.
But I do.
— Jesse
---
When he came home few hours later, arms full of paint cans and takeout, I was already standing at the door.
Waiting.
I didn't cry.
He did.
Just a little.
---
We spent the rest of the day painting in silence.
Music playing low.
Colors bleeding into the corners.
And every time we passed each other, our hands brushed.
Like the letter wasn't the end of something.
But the beginning.
---
That night, I folded the note and tucked it into my wallet.
Right next to my ID.
Because that letter?
That's who I am now.
Jesse's.