Chapter Text
“What are you doing?”
“Going to Nina’s.”
Wylan flinched, but Jesper hadn’t been looking to see it. He just grabbed his keys from the dish by the door, the one Wylan had put there months ago to keep Jesper from leaving them around their apartment and losing them, and walked out. The door slammed behind him, but Wylan didn’t jump. He didn’t blink, he barely breathed. He waited for Jesper to walk back in, to drop his keys back into the little bowl and smile that sad smile so Wylan could say he was sorry. Jesper would apologize too, because he always did, and Wylan would say it was okay, that they’d go to sleep and talk about it in the morning. They’d fall asleep curled up against each other and talk about it the next morning over coffee and pancakes Jesper would probably burn because he forgot they were still on the stove. It would be okay, because Jesper wouldn’t leave him. Because Jesper had promised, over a year ago, that he would never leave him.
Jesper never walked back through the door.
Wylan’s phone was still sitting on the floor from when he’d dropped it earlier. He picked it up, vaguely recognized the color of Nina’s contact in a notification on his screen through the blur of tears, and turned it off. He dropped it again, back to the floor so he wouldn’t be tempted to turn it on again until the morning.
Jesper had promised he wouldn’t leave him.
Wylan had not made keeping that promise easy. He couldn’t count the times he’d been too cruel, too distant, too tetchy. He couldn’t count the times he’d apologized, or the times Jesper had accepted his apology with a smile and a kiss. He couldn’t count the times he’d tried to push Jesper away, or the times Jesper hadn’t budged an inch, always whispering the same words.
“I won’t ever leave you. There’s nothing you could do to make me. Promise.”
Wylan’s therapist had told him to find something that calmed him, that was easy and manageable when most of his energy was taken up by thinking the same destructive thoughts on repeat. Wylan had found making tea helped. He couldn’t bring himself to walk to the kitchen.
He ended up in their guest room. He didn’t want to see their bed, empty because Jesper hadn’t kept his promise. Because Wylan had finally made doing so too difficult to be worth the payoff at the end. He didn’t want to see the shirts strewn across their floor or the jumble of rings next to their sink. He might die if he did, might shrivel up and wilt because Jesper had promised he wouldn’t leave him. Jesper had promised he wouldn’t leave him. Jesper had left him .
Wylan had no doubt he’d wake up to a still empty apartment and texts from his friends. He didn’t want their pity, but craved their attention. He was destructive like that. He took advantage of what people offered him, held it too tight in greedy hands until they got sick of him and took it back. There was no one to blame for this but himself. If he hadn’t been so stupid, so annoying and stubborn and fucking awful, Jesper might still be here. He might have kept his promise.
He wished he was mad. It would be so much easier to hate Jesper for leaving, or for starting the fight, or to call Inej and vent about all the ways Jesper had fucked up, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t, because he’d known this would happen eventually. He’d known that Jesper would realize that he was better off without the endless baggage Wylan carried, without his constant mood swings and bad temper and countless failings. It was astonishing Jesper had kept him around as long as he had. But Wylan had been certain that one day his endless patience would run out, and he’d been right. He’d been right, and he couldn’t be mad about it, only grateful it hadn’t happened sooner.
Even in their guest bedroom, he can’t escape the memory of Jesper. The sheets were purple, and the comforter a paisley green. Both had been Jesper’s pick, and Wylan had been too smitten to even consider saying no. Looking at them, feeling them, being near them, made him feel sick, but he needed to sleep. If he was asleep he couldn’t think about the millions of ways he’d fucked up, or hope Jesper would come back and be disappointed when he never did.
Laying in bed alone was hard. He’d done it since they started dating, but it was different now. It was different because before, he’d had Jesper’s contact open, the voice messages about how much he missed him playing on repeat. He’d had some kind of security in the knowledge that they would be reunited soon. That as weird as it was to sleep alone, it wouldn’t be forever. He had no such comfort now.
It took hours for him to finally fall asleep, but eventually, he managed. When he woke up, Jesper still had not returned.