The Long Road Back

The Long Road Back

The world had shrunk to the size of a single, gnawing ache. It pulsed in my chest, a hollow space where my heart used to beat with a steady rhythm. Now, it was a ragged, desperate thing, clinging to the thinnest of threads. The six months prior had been a blur of falling, of losing, of watching everything I loved slip through my fingers like grains of sand. Home, job, and worst of all, Aries. The thought of his bright eyes, the way he’d burrow into my side with a sigh of contentment, was a phantom limb, an ache so profound it threatened to consume me.

But even in the deepest darkness, a flicker. It wasn’t a grand revelation, no lightning bolt from the heavens. It was smaller, quieter, born from the sheer, brutal exhaustion of wanting to disappear. I was tired of the numb. Tired of the frantic scramble. Tired of the self-loathing that clung to me like a second skin. And somewhere, buried beneath layers of despair and chemical fog, a thought began to take root: *I wanted Aries back.* Not just in my dreams, not just as a memory I replayed on repeat. I wanted him back in my arms, safe and warm, with the smell of sunshine and innocent laughter clinging to him.