Once Upon a Time
The apartment had never felt darker.
Daniel stood in the doorway of what used to be their bedroom, his hand still on the light switch, realizing with a strange, hollow ache that he'd never noticed how much light Liam brought into a room until he was gone. Not just the lamps Liam always remembered to turn on, or the way he'd pull back the curtains every morning like he was unveiling a gift. It was something else. Something that made the shadows seem deeper now, the corners more distant.
He'd been afraid of the dark as a child. Liam had laughed when Daniel first told him, that summer night three years ago when they'd driven out to the coast and lay on a blanket watching stars emerge from the twilight. “You're afraid of the dark?” Liam had said, rolling onto his side, his smile catching moonlight. “But you're the bravest person I know.”
Daniel had kissed him then, tasting salt air and summer and the particular sweetness of being twenty-four and certain that this—this—was forever.
He hadn't known he should hold on tighter.
The memories came in fragments now, sharp as broken glass. Liam’s hand in his as they walked through the city, streetlights catching the rain on the sidewalk. The weight of Liam’s head on his shoulder during long subway rides home. The way Liam said his name in the morning, voice rough with sleep, like Daniel was the first good thing he thought of when he woke.
“You idiot,” Daniel whispered to the empty room. He didn’t know which of them he meant.
But Liam had been his. For a little while, Liam had been his.
They'd met at a gallery opening neither of them wanted to attend. Daniel had been dragged there by his roommate; Liam had come because the artist was his ex-boyfriend's new partner, and he'd wanted to prove something to himself about being mature and moving on.
“This is terrible,” Liam had said, appearing at Daniel’s elbow as they both stared at a six-foot canvas of a melting Amazon box titled “Late-Stage Sorrow.”
Daniel had laughed, surprised into honesty. “It really is.”
“I'm Liam.”
“Daniel.”
They'd left twenty minutes later, abandoning the white wine and pretentious conversations for a diner that served breakfast at midnight. Liam had ordered pancakes and talked with his hands, telling stories that made Daniel laugh so hard his sides hurt. Under the fluorescent lights, Liam’s eyes were green, and Daniel had thought: Oh. This is going to hurt someday.
But he hadn't known how much.
The summer nights were the worst to remember. They'd had so many of them, each one feeling infinite in the moment. Rooftop parties where they'd sneak away to kiss against brick walls still warm from the sun. Late walks through the park, Liam pulling Daniel onto the grass to look at constellations neither of them could name. Dancing in their kitchen at two a.m., drunk on cheap wine and each other, Liam’s laugh bright as music.
“You're something special,” Liam had told him once, forehead pressed to Daniel’s, both of them swaying to a song only they could hear. “You know that?”
Daniel had felt special. With Liam, he'd felt like he mattered in a way he never had before. Like he was someone's first choice, someone's favorite person, someone's home.
Once upon a time, he'd been something to someone.
The unraveling had been slow, then sudden.
Liam got the job offer in September—a dream position in Seattle, the kind of opportunity you don't turn down. They'd talked about long distance with the desperate optimism of people who'd never tried it. They'd made promises over wine at their favorite restaurant, Liam reaching across the table to lace their fingers together.
“Nothing changes,” Liam had said. “We'll make it work.”
Daniel had believed him. He’d believed in them.
But distance did what distance does.
The phone calls got shorter. The visits got rarer. The silence between texts stretched from hours to days. And then, on a rainy Tuesday in February, Liam had called and said the words that Daniel had been dreading but somehow still wasn't prepared to hear:
“I think we need to be realistic about this.”
Realistic. As if what they'd had could be measured in practicalities and logistics. As if love was something you could budget or schedule or make sense of on a spreadsheet.
“I kept your sweatshirt,” Liam had said, and Daniel could hear him crying through the phone. “The gray one. I sleep in it and I hate myself for it. I can’t keep doing that, Daniel. I can’t keep waking up smelling you in a city you’ve never even visited.”
Daniel had wanted to argue. Had wanted to say that failing at something together was better than succeeding at being apart. But he'd heard the exhaustion in Liam’s voice, the way hope had drained out of it like water through cupped hands.
So instead, he'd said: “I understand.”
It was the kindest lie he'd ever told.
Now it was July again, and Daniel walked the same streets they used to walk together. Sometimes, in that strange blue hour between dusk and dark when the streetlights first flickered on, he'd see someone with Liam’s build, Liam’s stride, and his heart would lurch with recognition.
But every time he got close, the illusion would shatter. Different face, different person, different life. And Daniel would be left standing on some corner he didn’t recognize anymore, holding nothing.
Daniel had learned to be afraid of the dark again, but in a different way now.
He stood at the window and watched the city come on below him, all those lit windows, all those lives carrying forward.
But he hadn't known. Neither of them had.
They’d been young and certain that the rules didn’t apply to them.
Daniel’s phone buzzed in his pocket. For a moment—just one foolish, hopeful moment—he thought it might be Liam.
It wasn't. It was his friend Alex, asking if he wanted to grab dinner.
Daniel looked around the dark apartment one more time. Then he turned on every light, one by one, filling the space with artificial brightness that wasn't the same but would have to be enough.
He texted back: Yes. I'd like that.
