Micah ThorneThe words leave him like something being ripped from his throat.
“I can’t do this without you.”
He’s kneeling now. The floorboards are cold and hard, a final, grounding truth. He isn’t here out of theatrics. This is the structural failure of a man who held the roof up too long on his own—the quiet, complete way people like Micah always break.
The heel of his palm grinds into his sternum, like he's trying to stanch a hemorrhage no one can see. But the tremor in his hand betrays him. He can’t look at you. His head is bowed, his breath coming in ragged pulls, like a man waiting for a verdict he knows he deserves.
“I gave you space,” he says, his voice scarred with all the silence he’d hoarded. “I thought if I stayed quiet, if I didn’t push… maybe that was love. Maybe that was the right thing.”
His gaze lifts. Blue eyes, ringed in red. Not from tears, but from the exhaustion of not crying—from nights spent on the couch watching the shadows haunt the ceiling, from every text drafted and deleted until the phone screen burned his retinas.
“But it wasn’t. It was empty. All that silence just let the cold in. I walk through this house touching the things we built—the bookshelf, the tile we laid—and they feel like artifacts. Like someone else’s life.”
He swallows, the sound thick and painful in the quiet.
“I don’t know how to fix this rift,” he admits, his fingers curling against the grain of the wood. “I know I went quiet when you needed noise. I shut doors when you needed them open. I keep trying to find the right words, and I keep coming up empty. We drifted, and I—I let it happen.”
A breath shudders out of him, taking a piece of his composure with it.
“But I can’t do this without you. I don’t want to. Waking up to the sound of you getting ready used to mean I wasn’t alone. Now it’s the first chokehold of the day. The silence where your voice should be? It’s not quiet. It’s a pressure. It’s drowning.”
He sways forward, a phantom impulse to reach for you—then catches himself, recoiling. He won’t be another burden for you to carry.
“I’m not asking for the whole sun back. Just a sliver of light. A crack in the door. A ‘maybe.’ I’ll take the scorch of it if it means I still get to stand in the garden.”
His voice drops now, stripped bare. Not a performance, but a confession.
“This—me on my knees—it’s not about pride. Or even forgiveness. It’s about the fact that the best version of me had your reflection in his eyes. I don’t know how to navigate the hollow spaces.”
Finally, he lifts his hand. Not demanding. Not clutching. Just open. An offering, and a map of every callus and line that led him back to you.
“I’m still here,” he whispers, the words worn smooth with use, with hope. “Even if ‘here’ is just this floor. I’m still here for you.”
“I can’t do this without you.”
He’s kneeling now. The floorboards are cold and hard, a final, grounding truth. He isn’t here out of theatrics. This is the structural failure of a man who held the roof up too long on his own—the quiet, complete way people like Micah always break.
The heel of his palm grinds into his sternum, like he's trying to stanch a hemorrhage no one can see. But the tremor in his hand betrays him. He can’t look at you. His head is bowed, his breath coming in ragged pulls, like a man waiting for a verdict he knows he deserves.
“I gave you space,” he says, his voice scarred with all the silence he’d hoarded. “I thought if I stayed quiet, if I didn’t push… maybe that was love. Maybe that was the right thing.”
His gaze lifts. Blue eyes, ringed in red. Not from tears, but from the exhaustion of not crying—from nights spent on the couch watching the shadows haunt the ceiling, from every text drafted and deleted until the phone screen burned his retinas.
“But it wasn’t. It was empty. All that silence just let the cold in. I walk through this house touching the things we built—the bookshelf, the tile we laid—and they feel like artifacts. Like someone else’s life.”
He swallows, the sound thick and painful in the quiet.
“I don’t know how to fix this rift,” he admits, his fingers curling against the grain of the wood. “I know I went quiet when you needed noise. I shut doors when you needed them open. I keep trying to find the right words, and I keep coming up empty. We drifted, and I—I let it happen.”
A breath shudders out of him, taking a piece of his composure with it.
“But I can’t do this without you. I don’t want to. Waking up to the sound of you getting ready used to mean I wasn’t alone. Now it’s the first chokehold of the day. The silence where your voice should be? It’s not quiet. It’s a pressure. It’s drowning.”
He sways forward, a phantom impulse to reach for you—then catches himself, recoiling. He won’t be another burden for you to carry.
“I’m not asking for the whole sun back. Just a sliver of light. A crack in the door. A ‘maybe.’ I’ll take the scorch of it if it means I still get to stand in the garden.”
His voice drops now, stripped bare. Not a performance, but a confession.
“This—me on my knees—it’s not about pride. Or even forgiveness. It’s about the fact that the best version of me had your reflection in his eyes. I don’t know how to navigate the hollow spaces.”
Finally, he lifts his hand. Not demanding. Not clutching. Just open. An offering, and a map of every callus and line that led him back to you.
“I’m still here,” he whispers, the words worn smooth with use, with hope. “Even if ‘here’ is just this floor. I’m still here for you.”
2154
