By morning, the weight of the night still clung to Jake like smoke,thin, invisible, but choking him all the same. The fight with Jules had left a familiar ache, a sharp regret dulled by exhaustion. He hadn't slept much. Instead, he layed awake staring at the ceiling, playing the conversation over and over like a broken film reel. Part of him wanted to believe he was the victim,misunderstood, discarded. But a quieter part, one he usually tried to ignore, kept whispering that maybe this wasn't just about Jules. Maybe it hadn't been for a long time. He found himself at the kitchen counter, clutching a chipped mug of instant coffee, his hands trembling slightly. The apartment was silent, except for the hum of the fridge. It reminded him of the silence from his childhood home,unspoken things stuffed into walls like insulation, a quiet so thick it felt dangerous to break. Jake didn't grow up with warmth. His mother loved him in the way that people love fragile things they're afraid to touch,distant, cautious, inconsistent. She'd disappear into her room for days, only emerging when her mood brightened, only hugging him when she needed something in return. His father had walked out before Jake turned nine, leaving behind a trail of empty promises and a son too young to understand why "I'll see you next weekend" never really meant anything. That kind of early instability had planted something in him an ache he couldn't name, a constant reaching. Jake learned to anticipate moods, to read people like storm patterns, trying to be what they needed before they even asked. It made him adaptable. It made him survive. But it also made every connection feel like it was built on eggshells...beautiful and temporary.He stared at his phone again and still no message. He wanted to text Jules again, to explain what he'd meant, to soften his words, to claw his way back into their life. But he'd done that too many times. Apologized not because he was wrong, but because he was scared. Scared of being alone. Scared of being a nothing. Instead, he reached for the notebook he kept by his bedside and flipped to a clean page. His handwriting was messy, slanted from years of anxious thoughts trying to outpace his pen. "It's always the same script. I say too much. I feel too much. I scare people off and then pretend I didn't see it coming. Maybe I don't know how to do love that isn't desperate. Maybe I don't know how to exist unless I'm chasing something that keeps slipping away." Jake stared at the words until the ink blurred. Not from tears...he felt past that now,but from the heaviness in his chest, as if his heart didn't know how to beat without aching. Later, he wandered outside, aimless. The streets were waking up,kids with backpacks, the scent of early-morning coffee from the corner café. A part of him envied their simplicity. He wondered what it must feel like to exist without the constant undercurrent of instability, to not second-guess every interaction or fear that everyone you care about is one wrong word away from leaving. He ended up at the bus stop, sitting where he'd met the woman the night before,the one who'd told him to speak his truth out loud. He thought about what he'd said in therapy, how strange it felt to admit he didn't know who he was. Maybe that was where all of this started, trying to build a life on top of a foundation he never got to pour.
Maybe fragile connections were all he'd ever known. But somewhere deep inside, despite it all, Jake hoped he could learn how to build something stronger.
Something that might not fall apart.