1 The apartment was too big, the silence inside it vast and hollow. On the kitchen table sat last night’s untouched dinner, gone cold under the dim pendant light. Garlic-glazed chicken, slow-simmered short ribs, steamed greens, and a bowl of winter melon soup—everything Hannah loved most. We had screamed at each other until our throats were raw. Then she slammed the door, ordered an Uber, and disappeared into the rain. I stayed in that kitchen chair all night, watching the headlights sweep across the ceiling, waiting just like I always did. Whenever she got angry, she shut her phone off, cutting me out of her world until she decided I had suffered enough to earn a response. By ten the next morning, on my third call, the line finally clicked open. “Are you seriously still doing this?” Her voice was sharp, grating with irritation. “Call after call after call. Nate, you are driving me insane!” A wave of relief washed over me, fragile and pathetic. I softened my voice, keeping it as gentle as glass. “I was terrified something happened to you. If you hadn’t picked up, I was going to call the police.” “The police?” she scoffed, her tone rising in disgust. “I am a grown woman. I go where I want, when I want. Who the hell do you think you are? Your love is suffocating, Nate. I can’t breathe around you anymore.” “Hannah, please—” “I went out with a friend,” she snapped. “Is that a crime now?” “No. I’m sorry,” I whispered, the words slipping out out of sheer habit. “It’s my fault. Please don’t be mad.” “Your fault? Really?” A smug, triumphant edge crept into her voice. “Then tell me. List it out for me, Nate. Let’s see just how sincere this apology actually is.” I swallowed against the hard knot in my throat, blinking through a veil of hot tears. “I shouldn’t have questioned why you checked into a hotel with him,” I said, my voice shaking. “I shouldn’t have gotten upset when you went out of town together without telling me. I shouldn’t have started an argument over it, and I shouldn’t have held on so tight. Honey, I’m sorry. Please don’t leave me. If you come home, I promise I won’t ask again. I’ll do whatever you want.” “Ugh, stop it,” Hannah’s voice suddenly shifted on the other end, dropping into a coy, breathless giggle that wasn’t meant for me. “Trevor, don’t. I’m on the phone.” Then came a low, amused rumble of male laughter. My chest caved in. Trevor. The boy from her childhood, the one she called the golden boy who got away. According to Hannah, he had pulled her out of an icy river back in grade school, saving her life. Ever since they reconnected a month ago, I had become an invisible ghost in my own relationship, squeezed out until there wasn’t an inch of room left for me. We had been together for three years. Three years of shared leases, late-night ER runs, quiet breakfasts, and absolute devotion. Trevor had dated her for barely a month back in high school. Why was my three years worth nothing against his thirty days? “Hannah,” I pleaded, my dignity stripping away piece by piece. “The weather app said there’s a cold front rolling in today. You weren’t wearing enough layers when you left last night. Where are you? Let me drive over and bring you a jacket.” “Don’t bother,” she said coldly. Before she could hang up, Trevor’s voice came through clearly near the receiver, smooth and laced with smug condescension. “Don’t sweat it, Nate. She’s wearing my coat. Trust me, I’m taking very good care of your girl.” He put a lingering emphasis on the words taking care of. They both laughed—a private, shared joke traded over my shattered pride. I didn’t dare say a word. I was too terrified of losing her. “Whatever, I don’t have time for this,” Hannah cut in impatiently. “Trevor and I are heading out. Spend the next couple of days thinking about what you’ve done. Whether we stay together depends entirely on how you behave.” The line went dead. A second later, the phone buzzed in my palm. Dr. Walsh: Nate, how have the past few months been? You made so much progress during our spring sessions. Please schedule a follow-up when you have time. Have you run out of your prescription? It was my psychiatrist. Ever since I was seventeen—ever since the night I watched both of my parents die in the wreckage of our car on an icy highway—chronic, severe depression had taken root in my marrow. Dr. Walsh was patient and thorough, constantly reminding me to take my medication. And for a long time, after Hannah walked into my life, the shadows seemed to lift. I started smiling again. Dr. Walsh had even told me I was on the brink of full remission. Now, sitting in the silence of that cold kitchen, a white-hot spike of agony drove through the center of my chest. I pressed my palm hard against my sternum, gasping for air that wouldn’t reach my lungs. The Black Dog hadn’t left. It had only been waiting. There was no cure. It was all a cruel illusion. I didn’t reply to Dr. Walsh. I simply pulled my knees up to my chest, curling into a ball on the wooden chair, drowning in an ocean of suffocating grief. 2 When I first met Hannah, she was vibrant, warm, and radiant—the single beam of sunlight that sliced through my pitch-black world. She used to pout playfully, tugging at my sleeve. “You can’t just hide inside all weekend! Come on, I’m taking you out.” “So what if you don’t have a big circle of friends? You have me. I’m your best friend and your girlfriend all in one.” She took me camping under open skies, dragged me to indie movie theaters, and brought me to crowded boardwalks I had always been terrified to visit. Whenever my social anxiety flared up and the crowds became too loud, she would lace her fingers through mine, squeezing tight. “I’ve got you. I’m not going anywhere.” Those were the promises she made to me. Yet in the span of four short weeks, her entire vocabulary had turned to poison. “Stop following me around. Don’t you have a life of your own?” “I don’t want to hang out with you. You’re boring and depressing.” “Nate, you are exhausting.” She spoke with sneers, her dark eyes once brimming with tenderness now clouded with pure revulsion. Every sweet vow we had whispered in the dark had turned into a sick punchline. My phone chimed with a priority notification. It was an Instagram alert from Hannah’s account. I tapped the screen, and my heart seized. It was a photo of two hands tightly clasped against the backdrop of a glittering, sapphire ocean. I recognized Hannah’s pale, delicate hand immediately. The fourth finger was bare. The diamond promise ring I had given her—the one meant to be replaced by a wedding band this coming winter—was gone. In its place was only a faint, pale indentation where the metal had rested for two years. The caption read: Finding you again. I won’t waste this lifetime. I knew that stretch of coastline. It was Cape Cove. It was where we had shared our very first trip, where we had confessed our love, and where we returned every single year to celebrate our anniversary. My hands shook violently as I dialed her number, clinging to the thinnest thread of hope. “Hannah.” “What now?” she answered, her voice dripping with venom. “Are you going to start crying about my post?” “No. I promised I wouldn’t fight with you about that stuff anymore,” I said softly. It wasn’t the first time she had posted something like this. Over the past month, every time she went out with Trevor, she shared cryptic, romantic captions, while erasing every trace of me from her profile. Mutual acquaintances had already begun texting me privately, awkwardly asking if we had quietly broken up. “Then what do you want?” “Do you… do you know what day tomorrow is?” I asked, my voice barely audible. The line fell quiet for a beat. Tomorrow was our three-year anniversary. The trip to Cape Cove was supposed to be ours. “I know,” Hannah said, letting out a dry, cold laugh. “So what? Given how completely unhinged you’ve been acting lately, did you really expect me to celebrate with you? Forget it. We’re skipping it this year.” She hung up. A wet sob tore out of my throat. Deep down, I had harbored a pathetic fantasy. I had wondered if she went to Cape Cove because of our anniversary, if she was simply throwing a tantrum, waiting for me to show up and make things right. It was all delusion. Still, the desperate, broken part of me refused to give up. I tossed a change of clothes into a duffel bag. After a moment of hesitation, I grabbed the amber bottle of prescription sedatives from the medicine cabinet. They were heavy-duty tranquilizers prescribed for severe panic and insomnia. Without them, during my worst episodes, I would stare at the ceiling until dawn, clawing at my own skin. I had truly believed I would never need them again. An hour and a half later, I was standing on the windswept shore of Cape Cove. The salt spray stung my eyes. As I looked down the wooden boardwalk, phantom memories flickered before me—Hannah laughing into the wind, holding my hand, promising that nothing could ever pull us apart. I checked into the boutique inn we always stayed at. Just as I pulled out my phone to text her, the elevator doors down the hall slid open. Hannah and Trevor stepped out, their fingers intertwined, laughing effortlessly at something Trevor had just whispered into her ear. The blood drained from my face. The moment Hannah saw me, her laughter died instantly. Her expression twisted into pure fury. “What the hell are you doing here? Nate, are you insane? You’re stalking me now?!” “I came to apologize,” I said, forcing a weak, trembling smile. I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out a small velvet box. “I bought the vintage sapphire necklace you wanted. Happy three-year anniversary, sweetheart.” Hannah didn’t even glance at it. She knocked my hand aside with a vicious swat. The velvet box hit the hardwood floor, popping open. The delicate silver chain snapped, the blue stone skittering across the floorboards. “Apologize for what?!” Hannah shouted, her voice echoing down the corridor. “You tracked me down to my hotel! You are sick in the head! I am completely done with you!” “Hannah, please—” “I’ve told you a hundred times, Trevor and I are just friends! But you just keep clawing at me, suffocating me, accusing me of things! I can’t take this anymore, Nate. We are over!” 3 The words hit me like a physical blow. My knees gave out, and I hit the floor with a heavy thud. “Please… don’t do this. Don’t end it.” I looked up at her, my vision blurring with tears. “I didn’t follow you here, I swear. It was a coincidence. You know this is our place, the inn we always—” “Shut up!” Slap. The crack of her palm against my cheek rang out through the hall. My head snapped to the side, my cheek stinging, my mind going completely blank. “Are you deaf? I said we are done!” Hannah looked down at me, her eyes freezing and full of hatred. She brought her boot down directly on the broken sapphire necklace, crushing the silver setting beneath her heel. “Take your pathetic trash and get out of my sight!” “I am sick of your constant, whining self-pity. Sick of your insecurity and your endless drama. Keep this up and you’re going to drive me crazy!” She sneered, spitting out the final words: “Why don’t you just do the world a favor and go die, you psycho?” Trevor let out a soft chuckle. He slid his arm casually around Hannah’s waist, pulling her flush against his side. “Come on, babe. Don’t waste your breath on a loser.” They turned and walked away, leaving me collapsed on the hallway carpet. I don’t remember how I dragged myself back into my room. My hands shook so violently that I could barely pry the cap off the prescription bottle. I poured three pills into my palm and swallowed them dry, desperate for the chemical numbness to shut off the screaming in my head. Ten minutes passed. Then twenty. “Why isn’t it working?” I sobbed, clutching my head as the agony inside my skull swelled into a deafening roar. “Why won’t it stop?!” The balcony door was slightly ajar, the ocean wind howling outside. The sheer magnitude of the pain made me want to fling myself over the railing into the rocks below. Just let it end… Tears streamed down my face. In a state of absolute, frantic delirium, I grabbed the amber bottle, tipped it back, and swallowed every single pill left inside. The overdose hit hard and fast. Within minutes, the room began to tilt. My limbs turned to lead. I collapsed onto the rug beside the bed, unable to lift my head. Gag. A violent heave racked my stomach. The toxic chemical overload triggered my body’s survival reflex, forcing bile and half-dissolved pills up into my throat. But the heavy sedatives had already paralyzed my motor functions. My throat refused to swallow, my lungs refused to clear. Most overdose victims don’t die peacefully in their sleep; they suffocate on their own vomit, paralyzed while conscious of their own drowning. I felt every second of that horrific, airless agony. Until the sound of the ocean faded, the room dissolved, and everything went entirely black. When awareness returned, there was no pain. I opened my eyes and found myself standing near the ceiling of a sterile, brightly lit hospital room. Looking down, I saw Hannah standing by a desk, clutching a thick medical file with white knuckles. “He actually had severe clinical depression?” Hannah asked, her voice trembling with disbelief. “This isn’t just an act? He wasn’t making it up to guilt-trip me into getting back together?” Standing across from her was Dr. Walsh, her face like carved stone. “You lived with him for three years,” Dr. Walsh said, her voice dripping with ice. “Did you truly never notice how sick he was?” “I thought… I thought he was just needy—” “I genuinely believed having you in his life would help him heal,” Dr. Walsh cut her off sharply. “I had no idea you were the one pushing him toward the cliff. Nate deserved so much better than you.” Dr. Walsh pulled a thick envelope from her briefcase and dropped it onto the desk. “This is his suicide note. Or rather, the final draft of one. He began writing them the very week he met you. Read it yourself.” Hannah reached out with shaking fingers, picking up the envelope and unfolding the pages. Within seconds, she began shaking her head wildly. “No. No, this is impossible. This doesn’t make sense!” 4 “How could he be the one who saved me?” Hannah gasped, clutching the paper to her chest. “That was Trevor! Trevor was the boy at the river!” Dr. Walsh frowned, looking at her with a mix of confusion and disgust. “What are you talking about?” Hovering in the quiet air above them, I looked down at the letter. It was true. I had written my first final letter to Hannah the week we started dating. After we fell in love, I became terrified. Terrified of dying suddenly, terrified of the Black Dog tearing me away from her without warning. That was why I committed to therapy with Dr. Walsh. Every time I went in for an appointment, I brought an updated letter. If an episode ever took me before I could say goodbye, I wanted Hannah to have absolute proof that my death was not her fault. Over three years, I had written over a hundred drafts, refining my words, pouring out my love. The last letter—the one resting in Hannah’s hands—wasn’t handed to Dr. Walsh in person. I had scheduled a local courier to deliver it right before I drove out to Cape Cove. Before I left the apartment, I already knew in my bones what was coming. I went to the coast to make one last, desperate stand for our love. And if that failed… I simply had nothing left to live for. Dr. Walsh had always respected my privacy; she had never read the sealed letters. She only knew what I chose to share during our sessions. “Look right here!” Hannah’s voice spiked with hysterical urgency as she pointed at a paragraph in the letter. “He claims he pulled me out of the frozen river when we were kids! That’s a lie, right? He’s making it up! Nate was terrified of everything—how could he possibly have had the courage to jump into a freezing river in the dead of winter?!” Dr. Walsh’s expression hardened. “How many people were there that day, Hannah?” Hannah froze. “…Two,” she whispered after a long silence. “We were in sixth grade. Two boys walked past the creek path that afternoon. Trevor… and Nate.” She swallowed hard, her eyes darting frantically. “But how could it be Nate? Nate was scrawny and quiet back then. We barely even spoke. Trevor was already on the county swim team—he was an athlete! It makes sense that Trevor was the one who jumped in!” In the stillness of the room, my phantom self let out a bitter, silent sigh. So that was it. I had never brought up the river rescue because I didn’t want her to carry the weight of an old trauma, nor did I want her to feel obligated to me. I had assumed she had forgotten the details entirely; she was already hypothermic and drifting out of consciousness by the time she reached the bank. When she excitedly told me a month ago that she had reconnected with the ‘hero’ from her childhood, my heart had soared for a single, foolish second. Did she finally figure out it was me? Instead, she threw herself into Trevor’s arms. I had tried to tell her the truth. But she never gave me the chance. Every call was cut short, every text ignored. Whenever Trevor was near, I ceased to exist. And eventually, a suffocating despair took over. Even if I proved it to her, what would it accomplish? Guilt-tripping her into staying with me? What kind of love was that? If three years of genuine devotion could be discarded overnight simply because Trevor wore the title of her childhood hero, did Hannah ever really love me? Or was she just in love with a fantasy? If any other boy had pulled her from that water, would she have handed her heart to him just as easily? That realization had broken the last piece of my soul.
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