A jingle of keys at 1AM announced the return of Robert Douglas Miller. Half-slumping against the door as he unlocked it, the scruffy blonde leaned his way inside, groping blindly for the light. An electrical buzzing filled the room a moment later as the overhead lamp flickered on, washing his empty living room in a weak light. He shut the door much the same way he had opened it—by leaning against it, until the familiar click secured it. The grainy feel of the wood just barely registered through his coat, pressing uncomfortably against his bony frame. Rather than staying to contemplate that, he pushed himself away from his door’s support, swaying a little on his feet. Everything seemed so much more unstable now. So much more uncertain, as though the earth would simply buck open beneath him and swallow him whole at any moment. He hadn’t even been drinking.

Drinking.

Suddenly a man on a mission, Robert stumbled his way into his kitchen. Three drawers still hung open where he had been searching for those damned wandering keys earlier, and there was an open, if empty, pizza box on the counter. But otherwise, the place was clean. Just like she preferred. She never could stand a messy kitchen.

Yanking open the fridge, he reached in without looking and popped open a Heineken. Even the refrigerator was clean, though that was for different reasons—it was nearly empty. She’d taken most of the food with her.

A faint trickle of beer found its way down his chin as he guzzled the first half, hardly even cognizant enough to register the bitter taste. He finally pulled it away gasping, like a drowning man finding the surface. The taste of alcohol was enough to bring him back into some semblance of functionality again, bring him back into the real world, chase away the sound of her voice.

Abandoning the beer on the counter with the pizza box, he slumped against the cabinets, knees buckling. Two days… It had been two days since he had seen that distant, tired look on her face. Slowly, Robert folded in on himself, head in the crook of his arms, his shoulders shaking.

Perhaps he had known all along that things would end up like this. After all, she had never been his to begin with. It had started innocently enough—a whisper in the night, a sensual touch between the sheets. But they had both been swept away by… By what? Emotion, certainly. Lust, definitely. Caring, desire, passion, obsession. But love? It seemed like such a pretentious assumption now, to think that their affair had been anything more than a guttural show of physicality. It was easier to imagine it that way, at least. It was easier to dismiss it as something better off dead if he could only believe that she had been nothing more than a good fuck. But the thought was also even more depressing. Had he truly wasted two and a half years on something that would never be anything more than pure, animalistic desire? Pathetic.

The word rang in his mind for several long moments. Pathetic. It was appropriate. Both for what he was now, and what he had been. A broken man curled on his kitchen floor, mourning his shattered hope for what had always been entirely hopeless. The one thing he had ever been optimistic about, and it had been enough to destroy him. Sucking in a painful breath, he curled his fingers in his hair, body quaking.

She had led him on. But no, she hadn’t. They had both known their situation from the beginning. The ring on her finger was a strong, guilty chord in his mind, resonating with accusation. How could he even begin to push fault on her? She didn’t deserve that. It was simply because he was too weak to acknowledge his own blame in the situation. He had always been the weak one in the relationship. After all, she had been the one who had finally garnered the courage to leave. Even with his destruction hanging over his head, he could not tell her no. He never could.

Pathetic. The word jerked his attention back again. No wonder she had left him. With him clinging to her skirts like a child, he had often wondered why she hadn’t done it sooner. It certainly wasn’t for any affection, his mind spat at him bitterly. But a wave of shame washed that away a moment later—no, there he went trying to blame her again, to put the fault entirely on her. He couldn’t even shoulder the weight of his relationship’s end. How could he ever have shouldered a real relationship with her? She must have known that. It was why she left.

Picking himself up off the floor, Robert Miller leaned both hands against the counter, uneven, dirty blonde hair hanging in his face. This was ridiculous. He had lived twenty-four years of his life without her. But suddenly that prospect was a death sentence. Hardly even thinking, he yanked open—or rather, out, since it was broken—another drawer, setting it on the counter. Unearthing a bottle of Aspirin from the rest of its contents, he stared at it, hand suddenly steady. It was still mostly full. He usually preferred an Advil or some Icy Hot for his back pains. There was more than enough.

Breath stilling, he stared at the bottle for an eternity, its peeling label still barely discernable. There it was. The final proof of his pathetic nature. The final nail in a coffin of insecurities and inability. It was a final escape—an escape, not a solution. Drawing in a shuddering lungful of air, he turned it over to the ingredients without actually reading them.

Slowly, emotion drained from his face. With an agonizing deliberateness, he put the bottle back in the drawer, watching the brand name slip away beneath a roll of gauze. Jaw set, he stared at that for a while, as well, just to be certain the bottle wouldn’t somehow leap back up at him and drag him screaming into hell with it. Almost mechanically, he turned away, staring at a spot where his wallpaper was beginning to peel. She had ruled his life for two and a half years, but she would not rule his death.

Grabbing the beer again, he abruptly hurled it at the ragged spot on the wall, stumbling as it shattered explosively. Turning on his heel, Robert strode back to his door and flung it open again, plunging back into the chilly night air. It had been two and a half years since the last time he had sat in the park with that little notebook in his back pocket. Two and a half years since he had last written in the snow and the moonlight. But much had changed over the last two days, and some of it, he realized with a sense of bitter satisfaction, was for the better.