The rain had been falling since dusk. It painted the streets in oil-slicked reflections, drowning the city's sounds in a muted hush. Adrian stood still beneath a flickering streetlamp, the hood of his jacket sagging under the weight of the downpour. He wasn't cold. He wasn't even wet. Not really. What he felt was something deeper, something raw. A storm inside the storm.
Up above him, third floor, second window from the left, her lights were on. Shadows moved across the curtain--two shapes, intertwined, careless. They laughed.
Adrian clenched his jaw until it ached. A month ago, that laughter was his. That silhouette--his arms wrapped around Eliza. The late-night talks about starting over. The long drives just to get lost. Her promises. All of it, nothing but sugar-laced venom. Now the sound of her laughter felt like knives in his chest.
He had met Eliza two years ago. College sweethearts, they called themselves. She had a smile like summer and a laugh that could disarm any argument. Adrian was the steady one, the one who planned things out. She was fire. Passionate. Chaotic. And he loved her for it--until she turned that fire into ash.
It started with the distance. Missed calls. "Girls' nights." Locked phones and sudden secrets. He didn't want to believe it. He told himself everyone has bad weeks. But then he saw the text. Just one. From Caleb--his best friend since sixth grade.
"Last night was unreal. You drive me crazy. When's he gone again?"
Adrian didn't confront her right away. No, he waited. He watched. Each lie she told twisted like barbed wire in his gut. Her voice--once his sanctuary--became poison. The same woman who once danced barefoot in the kitchen was now erasing him in real time, and smiling while she did it.
Tonight was the final proof. Caleb's car was parked across the street. He watched it pull in an hour ago. No hiding. No shame. No remorse.
Adrian had thought about revenge. About storming the building, smashing Caleb's face into the floor, screaming at Eliza until his throat shredded. But rage wasn't justice--it was a gift they didn't deserve. What they did deserve was truth. Cold, brutal, unflinching.
He pulled a folded letter from his coat pocket. The ink was smudged in places--he'd rewritten it a dozen times before deciding to keep the mess. It wasn't polished. It was blood on paper.
He crossed the street, walked up the steps to her apartment building, and slid the letter into her mailbox without a word. No doorbell. No knocking. Just quiet.
Then he turned, walked around the back of the building, and waited in the alley.
Caleb came out twenty minutes later, umbrella in hand, cocky and humming some tune like he hadn't just betrayed the only person who ever had his back.
Adrian stepped from the shadows.
"Hey, Caleb."
Caleb turned, startled, the grin falling from his face. "Adrian?"
Adrian didn't wait. One punch--clean, brutal--sent Caleb stumbling back into the wall. "That's for six years of friendship." Another punch to the gut. "That's for lying to my face."
He grabbed Caleb by the collar and shoved him down into a puddle, letting the rain do the talking while he hovered above him, fury burning through his veins. "You're nothing. Always have been. Just a leech sucking on whatever I cared about."
Caleb coughed, sputtered. "You don't understand--"
"I understand perfectly," Adrian spat. "You wanted what I had. You can keep her. But you'll remember this night every time you look in a mirror."
He let go and walked away, the sound of Caleb groaning behind him like some pathetic afterthought. No police. No drama. Just a message.
He didn't expect to hear from Eliza. But she called the next night.
He let it ring.
She called again. This time, he answered.
Her voice was brittle. "What did you do to Caleb?"
