The Boy Lost and the Man Found

by Afadora

Summary:

When Lily dreams of a younger, broken David, gaunt, glittering, and lost in the haze of 1975, it shakes her to her core. In the dream, she comforts him. In waking life, she can’t let go of the boy she met in the deepest corner of her mind.
What begins as one sleepless night becomes a quiet reckoning between the past and present. Lily’s love for the man beside her, and the ache for the boy he used to be. As both of them are drawn into memories and dreams too vivid to ignore, they must learn what it means to witness each other. Fully, painfully, and without turning away.

Notes:

Hello! This is my first fanfiction, and honestly, I have no idea where it’s going. It’s part of a larger story I’ve been writing mostly for myself—something quiet and soft to help me miss David Bowie a little less every day.
This is meant to be an established-relationship kind of thing: a slow, introspective story about grief, memory, healing, and holding someone through every version of themselves.
Set around 2010, post-retirement for David. No canon knowledge needed. I’ve taken some liberties with the timeline—David is imagined to be around 55, and Lily is 23.
English isn’t my first language, so please forgive any awkward grammar along the way. Thank you so much for reading.

Chapter 1: The Room with No Time

The air inside the flat didn’t move. The windows weren’t blocked, yet all of them were pitch black. It was as though the world outside had ceased to exist—just this room, this moment unraveling at the seams.

Lily stepped through the narrow hall, her bare feet soft against the timeworn carpet. The lights above her buzzed—yellow, too harsh and yet not enough. Shadows curled in unfamiliar directions, stretching her perception of distance into impossible measures. The wallpaper had curled at the edges like tired skin, the walls trying to swallow themselves. The clock on the wall was frozen at 3:33. A record spun in the far corner, screeching and simultaneously whispering Station to Station lyrics, skipping in place:

“It’s too late… too late… too late…”

Lily shivered, though she couldn’t feel any change in temperature. The atmosphere here was menacing, shrouded in something dark and ominous. She turned around, ready to escape whatever hellhole she had wandered into. Yet when she reached behind her to twist the knob she knew for a fact was there, her hand stopped on a bare wall. A gasp left her as she turned to check for herself—and indeed, just a bare wall pressed into her back. No going back. The only way was to round the corner into the living room and see what awaited her there. With trembling fingers, she pushed herself forward and eventually peeked around the doorframe.

Her eyes immediately found the only other person in the room—David.

Not her David.Not the one who left mugs of Earl Grey in odd places, wrote lyrics on scraps of paper scattered around their flat, and knew the names of every British poet. Not the one who smiled at her, with crow’s feet forming around his eyes—like she was a song he hadn’t heard in years.
This David was a ghost of himself, gaunt, bone-sharp, glittering, and utterly alone. He wore a waistcoat and a silk shirt open at the chest, a cigarette trembling between his fingers. He sat curled in a wingback chair, arms wrapped tight around his knees like a child hiding from a storm. His cheekbones were sharp enough to cut. His skin had a grey translucence, like it belonged to another realm, sharply contrasting with his bright red hair, sweat-plastered to his face. Cigarette ashes clung to his lapels. There were dark smudges beneath his eyes, weeks-deep.

“Who—? Are you one of them? Who sent you?” he asked, voice cracked and threadbare. As his gaze focused on her, it took Lily a few seconds to figure out what was so unsettling about him.

David’s right eye, the bright blue one, the one that once shone like the summer sky, the healthy one, was almost swallowed by the wideness of its pupil. His eyes were finally similar, in a terrifying sort of way. Two black orbs stared right at her. And she couldn’t see any soul behind them.

“No, David,” she whispered, not sure who he was referring to, but needing to comfort him anyway. She stepped closer.“No one sent me.”

He flinched, shrinking back into the chair.

“Then what are you? Some ghost? I don’t know you. I don’t know anyone anymore.”

Her heart cracked open.

She reached out. He jerked slightly, but didn’t move away. His wrist in her hand was delicate—birdlike. She held it gently. His skin was clammy.

“I know you,” she said. “I know everything about you. And it’s going to be okay. You don’t have to be afraid anymore.”

“I’m always afraid,” he said, with the broken honesty of someone who hadn’t yet learned how to lie to himself—or maybe had forgotten how.

“I think I’m not real. I think I’m dying. I can’t sleep. I see things.”

“You’re not dying,” she said, eyes wet now. “You’re going to live. You’re going to make it. You’ll get clean. You’ll get free. And someday, you’ll even learn to be loved for exactly who you are.”

He looked at her then, truly looked. For the first time, something like peace passed over his hollow face.

“How do you know?”

“Because I’ll be there,” she said softly. “I am there.”

His hand gripped hers a little tighter, like a child clinging to the edge of a dream.

“Will I remember this?” he asked.

She gave him a shaky smile. “No. But you’ll feel it. Somewhere deep. A hand pulling you forward. David, I’ve seen every version of you,” she whispered. “And this one breaks my heart.”

His throat worked around something unsaid. “So you… know me?” he asked, cautiously, like it was dangerous to believe.

“I love you.”

He stared at her. “You love me?” he echoed, disbelief and yearning knotted tight.

“Not for the legend,” she said. “Not for the myth. Just you.”

“Why? Why love me? I am nothing. Most days I feel nothing.” His voice cracked.

“Because even like this—lost and strung out and furious at the world—you’re still trying. Even when it hurts. Even when you’re bleeding underneath the glitter. You never stopped fighting.”

Silence. Thick and absolute. The record player finally gave up. Lily could smell the smoke of the cigarette David had been smoking slowly dying down. Somewhere in the hall, the clock began to tick again.

She stood slowly, extended a hand. “Come sit with me.”

“I can’t stand,” he said, voice quiet. “I’m too—”

“You can.” She reached for him, slowly. “Lean on me.”

And he did.

He was light. Too light. A man made of bones and ache. She guided him gently to the velvet couch, helped him down. He trembled, fingers twitching as if he wasn’t used to stillness. She curled beside him, arms drawing around his thin frame. He smelled of sweat, and smoke, and cologne that did nothing to cover the fear wafting from his skin.

His head rested against her shoulder. “Don’t go yet.”

“I won’t,” she said, holding him closer. “I’m right here.”

“Tell me something good,” he whispered.

Her throat tightened. “You live,” she said. “You survive this. You get clean. You find peace. You grow into your skin. You get to be loved. Deeply. Safely.”

His eyes fluttered closed. “Do I love her back?”

“You do,” she said. “More than you ever thought you could.”

“Do I ever stop being afraid?”

She paused. “Not completely. But you stop letting it decide who you are.”

He let out a long breath. “That’s something.”

His fingers brushed hers. She laced them together. “I think I could sleep now,” he murmured.

“Then sleep.”

And he did. She stayed with him in the silence. Just breathing. Watching the rise and fall of his chest. Brushing a thumb across his wrist, fragile as moth wings. For a moment—brief, holy—it felt like everything might be okay. But this was a room outside of time. And it would vanish before morning.
Still, she held him. Because this version of him, this broken, weary Starman, had never known that he was safe. Not even for a moment. Now, finally, he was. And that was enough. Had to be, for now.
Lily felt a piece of her heart break and fall, colliding with Davids open palm. She couldn’t help it. She would always fall in love with him, over and over again, in whatever timeline she met him, whatever persona he was wearing right now. She pressed her cheek into his hair, sighing faintly and awaiting the morning that would carry her away from this lost prince.

Chapter 2: The Weight of Waking

Lily was thrown back into the world with the force of a charging bull.

She woke with a gasp, a sob catching hard in her throat. The air pressed down on her like water, heavy and unrelenting, and for a moment she wasn’t entirely sure she’d surfaced at all. Everything felt too much. Too sharp. Too loud. Like she’d stepped onto the deck of a ship mid-storm, the floor rocking beneath her with a violence that didn’t belong to the room. In the dream, she had been calm. Steady. Focused. All her energy poured into staying with him, holding him through that nightmare, ignoring the ache building inside her.

But now? Now the pain came rushing back. It tore through her body like a siren scream. Angry. Grief ridden. Slicing clean through her chest and leaving her hollowed and raw. It was a grief that didn’t belong to her but had chosen her all the same. A second-hand sorrow she couldn’t put down.

She blinked hard, disoriented. Slowly, memory stitched the world back together. They were in Budapest. A rented apartment nestled just above the rooftops, overlooking the basilica of Saint István. The room was bathed in deep blue shadows, the fragile cusp between night and dawn. The air conditioning thrummed a low, steady drone from the corner. Curtains stirred slightly, the open window inviting in the faintest breath of city air. The bedsheets clung to her skin, damp with sweat, twisted tight around her legs like vines. Her chest ached. Deep. Hot. Hollow. Like someone had reached into her ribcage and carved something out while she slept.

God, but her chest hurt.

She reached out blindly, breath stuttering, fingers clawing at the sheets until they found warmth. Flesh. Muscle. David. Her nails scraped faintly against his skin as she latched on, as if sheer urgency could pull him closer. She felt his shoulder tense beneath her touch. David stirred immediately. Instinctual. Human. He rolled toward her, his voice hoarse with sleep, slipping deep into that London husk.

“Lily? What’s wrong—what is it, love?” He reached for her cheek with one hand, the other gently prying her death grip fingers from his shoulder to cradle them in his own. But she couldn’t speak.

The sobs had already arrived, brutal and fast. They slammed through her like waves, wild and disorganized. Her body trembled as she flung herself onto his bare chest, pressing her face into the warm crook of his neck. Her arms wrapped tightly around his shoulders. David’s silver-streaked blond hair tickled the soft undersides of her forearms, grounding her with something real. She held on like he was the last real thing in the world. Like if she let go, she’d fall straight back into that awful place, the dream, the memory, the not-him that had felt too much like him. David wrapped his arms around her instantly. Not loosely. Not softly. But tight. Protective. Fierce.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered, over and over. “I’ve got you, dove. You’re safe. You’re here with me.”

But the sobs didn’t stop. Her breath broke in hiccups. Her hands trembled, caught between clinging and collapsing. Her whole frame shook with it. David held her the way someone holds a feverish child, familiar, practiced, endlessly gentle. One hand swept slow, soothing arcs along her back. The other slid into her hair and rested there, grounding her. He shifted, carefully easing them down against the pillows, pulling her with him until they lay flat, her chest still pressed to his, her heartbeat stuttering against his steady one.

“You’re alright,” he murmured into her hair. “You’re safe. I’m right here.”

“No,” she managed to gasp. “You—you were—”
He drew back just enough to see her face. The look in his eyes changed instantly. From confusion to concern to something far more fragile.

“Lily,” he said softly, “what happened?”

She shook her head, words caught in her throat. Her tears were thick, her thoughts fragmented. Images flashed behind her eyes: red light. Ash. The warble of vinyl skipping in an endless loop. Cigarettes burning down to trembling fingers. David cupped her face in both hands, his thumbs brushing away the tears. His hands were warm, dry, coarse. Familiar.

“Hey, love. Look at me.” She blinked up at him, and when her eyes met his.

“It was a dream.”

He exhaled slowly. His shoulders eased. The sense of physical threat passed, but the emotional one? That lingered.

“Do you want to tell me?”

She hesitated. For a heartbeat she shook her head, overwhelmed by the weight of what she’d seen. It felt invasive. Sacred. Like she had trespassed somewhere she wasn’t meant to go, somewhere locked deep in David’s bones. A version of him no one was ever meant to touch. But it had touched her.

“It was you,” she whispered. David stilled.

“You were so young,” she continued, voice breaking. “Like the photos. ’75 maybe. Pale. Gaunt. You looked like you hadn’t eaten in days, malnourished even. I thought you’d shatter if I touched you.”

He said nothing. But his breath grew shallow. His body, tense.

“I found you in the London flat,” she said. “Only it wasn’t ours. Not really. It was collapsing into itself. The clock was broken. The record player kept skipping, over and over. You were in some old chair. And you looked right at me and asked if I was real.” David’s hand paused on her back.

“You thought I was a hallucination, a ghost. Said you didn’t know what was real anymore, that you were seeing things.” The silence stretched between them.

“I told you that you weren’t,” Lily whispered. “Told you that this isn’t the end. That you lived. That you got better. That you were loved.” Her voice broke. She clutched at him tighter.

“You didn’t believe me. But I stayed. And you let me hold you.” She could barely finish the thought. “I didn’t want to wake up. You were so alone, David.”

She felt the solidity of him now—his chest rising beneath hers, the rhythm of his breath syncing slowly with her own. His skin was warm beneath her palms. Alive. No dream version. No illusion. Real. And she was real, too. Her body trembled, yes—but it trembled against his. There was something so holy about it. The awareness that they were both awake, both breathing, and that neither of them had vanished in the telling. He exhaled. Deep. Quiet.

“I remember that flat,” he said finally. “That chair. It was winter. I’d unplug the phone. I’d stop eating. I didn’t sleep. Was afraid of windows. I kept thinking my reflection might move without me.” She let out a broken sound. Not quite a sob, not quite a breath.

“I thought I was dying,” he admitted. “And some nights… I hoped I was.”

“Don’t,” she whispered, not sure what she was begging him for. “Please don’t.”

“I’m not him anymore,” David said. “But he’s still in there. That boy. That mess.”

“He was terrified,” she whispered. “And no one came.”

“I wouldn’t have let them,” David replied, not bitter, just honest. “I didn’t want help. I didn’t trust anyone. I didn’t even trust the mirror.” She lifted her head, barely, and pressed a kiss over his heart.

“He let me,” she said.

Something broke. He pulled her to him so hard it almost hurt. His body tightened around hers like armour, like something trying to hold itself together from the inside out. She felt the shift. The quiet collapse. He didn’t cry. But something deep and bone-ancient fell open. She felt it in his breath. In the way his hand gripped the back of her neck, not to hold her down—but to hold on. They lay like that. Tangled. Still. Her sobs slowed. Her body softened. When she finally lifted her head, her eyes were raw, but clearer. Her voice was low.

“He asked me,” she said, “if he’d ever stop being afraid.” David looked at her, silent.

“What did you tell him?”

She swallowed. “Not completely. But one day, he stops letting it decide everything.”

David nodded. Once. And gently, reverently, pressed his lips to her forehead. She had touched his worst days. And now, he was here. Older, breathing, changed. Still afraid, maybe. but trying. Not whole, but healing.

They didn’t sleep again.But they lay together, wrapped around each other, until the sky outside the window turned pale with morning.And in the quiet hum of the waking city, they learned how to breathe again. Together.

Chapter 3: Echoes on Paper

Morning arrived slow and grey. The sky outside their window hung like wet linen—washed out and formless, the light diffused through cloud like smeared chalk. David held her against his chest for the rest of the night, easing his grip only when he was certain she wouldn’t shatter. His mind was in a million places at once, and yet nowhere at all, as he traced her shoulder blade, her spine, and alongside her ribs with the tips of his fingers, leaving trails of goosebumps in his wake. That’s how the late hours of noon found them: still tangled together, holding on like two scared children.

He felt Lily’s lashes flutter against his neck, where she had buried her face the night before, refusing to leave the safety of his familiar scent. She was waking up… or perhaps she hadn’t slept at all, only slowed her breathing to keep from drowning in the tsunami of her breakdown.

She moved like her bones ached. Slowly, she unfolded her arms from around his neck, her hand pressing down on his shoulder, hair tickling his face as she sat back on his abdomen. He watched her—hand hovering near her elbow, ready to steady her, always ready to support her in whatever way she needed. Her hair fell around her half-naked form, concealing the bare shoulder where his old, soft, worn shirt had slipped off.

Looking up at her, he felt a pang of guilt at the brief flash of desire that struck him. How many times had he imagined her like this? Soft, warm from sleep, wearing only his shirt, looking down at him like she owned every atom of his being, every waking thought, every lyric he had ever written.

But he didn’t have to look twice to know there was nothing beautiful about this moment. Her eyes were bloodshot and tired, tear tracks drying on the apples of her cheeks. Her shoulders curled inward, as if she were trying to make herself smaller or shield herself from the world. Fingers pressed into the skin of his stomach, holding onto him in whatever way she could.

Later, when he helped her into the bathroom and then onto the couch, where she stayed, nearly unmoving, David made tea, quiet and watchful. He moved through the kitchen without his usual rhythm, glancing back at her between each step. She sat curled into the corner of the couch, a blanket drawn tight around her shoulders like armor. Her hands disappeared into the folds. Her posture was small, closed in. Her eyes weren’t in the room, and neither was her mind. They were somewhere darker. A room where time didn’t pass. Where the air was stale and the record never stopped skipping.

When the kettle finally boiled, he picked the biggest mug he could find in this unfamiliar kitchen and brought it over. He added two sugar cubes, because it felt like that kind of day, stirred gently, and passed the cup to her with both hands. Her fingers wrapped around it like it might anchor her. She held it close, letting the warmth of the ceramic seep into her palms.

David settled into the chair across from her. He didn’t press. He didn’t offer distractions or ask questions he knew she couldn’t answer yet. He just stayed, picking up book he knew well had no intentions of reading.

The silence stretched between them, not uncomfortable, but not pleasant either. The kind of sacred, heavy quiet that asks nothing and gives everything.

She didn’t speak for a long time. Around midday, she reached for her sketchbook. The motion was instinctual, muscle memory born of years spent trying to understand the world through graphite. She didn’t even notice what she was drawing at first. Just the curve of a cheekbone. The shadowed line of a clavicle beneath a shirt that hung too loose. The way knees folded inward when someone was trying to disappear.

David. The boy. The version made of fear and ash.

Her pencil moved quietly, carving out the hollows beneath his eyes, both pupils dilated to an unnerving extent, the tension that never left his shoulders. She even drew the cigarette, the line of it burning down toward his skin.

David watched her, his reading glasses sitting low on his nose. The book lay untouched in his lap, thumb tucked between pages he hadn’t turned in over an hour. He said nothing until her hand slowed.

“That’s him,” he said softly. “You caught him.”

She didn’t respond. Her eyes had welled again.

“I just wish I could’ve done more,” she said, tracing the lines that formed young David’s hollow cheek. “Stayed longer. Told him everything.”

David leaned forward. “You did more than anyone else ever did.”

“Even if it wasn’t real?”

“It felt real, didn’t it?”

“It did,” she whispered. “He looked at me like I was a miracle. And I left. I let the dream end.”

David reached across the space between them and placed his hand over hers, careful not to smudge the page.

“You didn’t leave. You carried him here. Into this room. Onto that page.”

She looked down again, and her voice cracked like old paper. “He was so scared.”

“I know,” David said. “So was I.”

He hesitated, thumb tracing gently along her wrist.

“Sometimes… I think about him. Not often, but when I do, it’s like…” He paused, searching for the right words.

“I don’t know if I should hate him. Or hold him. That version of me. The one with the white powder in every drawer. The blackout curtains. The freezer full of milk and paranoia.”

She didn’t look up, but her fingers gently intertwined with his. “You should hold him.”

He nodded, jaw tense, brow slightly furrowed. “I think I’m learning how.”

They fell quiet again. The only sound was the distant noise of a city that knew nothing of their shared pain.

Later, she picked up the notebook again, opening to the same page as before and began to sketch next to the boy.

The man this time. The one who held her through the night. His face softened by morning, hair unruly, sleep still clinging to the corners of his eyes, framed by the faint lines of crow’s feet.

She didn’t explain it. She didn’t need to. He saw it for what it was.

She was stitching them together. The boy he had been. The man he had become. And the woman who loved them both.

------------------------------------------------

They left for London two days ahead of schedule.

Lily didn’t speak much at the airport. David kept his hand in hers nearly the entire flight. She didn’t cry, but she looked like someone hollowed out, like grief had carved her from the inside and left the shell behind. He tried, God, he tried, to fill the silence. With tea, with jokes, with stories of the most absurd gigs he played in the '70s. She smiled once, faintly. But nothing quite reached her. It wasn’t distance. It was something deeper. A kind of haunting.

When the cab pulled up to their building in London, rain was needling down softly, misting the windows. David reached for the door, but Lily didn’t move. Her eyes were fixed on the entrance, her shoulders locked.

He hesitated. “Dove?”

She was staring at the building like it might swallow her whole. “I don’t know if I can go in,” she said quietly.

He followed her gaze. The doorway. The bricks and what followed inside but no longer was present: the exact faded color of the hallway carpet. Ordinary things. But now, he saw it. The echo of the dream that had gutted her. A reality superimposed on memory.

“Is it the dream?” he asked gently.

She nodded. “It looked like our place David. The hall. The banister.” Her voice cracked. “I know it wasn’t here, not really. But my body doesn’t seem to believe that.”

He took her hand again, thumb brushing her knuckles. “Then we don’t go in yet,” he said. “We walk. We breathe. We let it pass.”

So they did. They circled the block under the soft rain, her steps growing steadier. By the time they returned, she gave the faintest nod. Not confidence. But courage. Inside, the flat was warm. Quiet. Familiar. Nothing was wrong. But Lily walked through it like she was waiting for a ghost. Not his ghost, exactly, but the boy version of him. The one made of ashy glitter. The one who’d stared through her in the dream, hollow and unreachable.

She stood in the kitchen too long, fingers brushing the edge of the counter. Opened the curtains in silence. Palmed the wall beside the record player like she was making sure it was real.

David stood in the doorway, hands limp at his sides, helpless.

“I don’t know how to fix this,” he said finally, his voice raw with guilt.

She turned toward him. Her expression wasn’t sad, exactly. Just tired. “You’re not supposed to.”

Still, she reached for him. Pulled him close. He held her like something fragile and priceless. They didn’t speak. Just stood there, forehead to forehead, trading breath. Later that evening, she made the call. Her therapist found a space for her the next day. When she hung up, David kissed her temple, lingering in the soft, floral scent of her shampoo.

“You don’t have to be okay quickly,” he murmured. “Just… don’t go through it alone.”

“I’m not,” she whispered, her voice barely audible.

That night, she fell asleep curled against him, her breath warm on his collarbone. Her hand tucked into his chest like it belonged there. And maybe it did.

David didn’t sleep for a long time. He lay in the dark, eyes tracing the ceiling, remembering things he’d tried to bury in dust and time. Milk turning sour in a fridge he hadn’t opened in days. His own hands shaking too violently to light a cigarette or button his own collar. The sound of something breaking, he couldn’t remember if it was a glass or a person.

He looked down at Lily, peaceful in sleep now. Then he turned gently, wrapped his arm around her, and pressed his lips into her hair.

“I’m so glad you found me,” he whispered. “Even there.”

Chapter 4: The Dream That Stayed

Notes:

Please know that while this chapter includes references to therapy and healing, I’m not a therapist and have limited personal experience with therapeutic settings. This is a fictional portrayal, written with care and emotion, but it may not reflect how therapy works in real life. I don’t intend to present this as advice or a “correct” model, just as a quiet part of Lily’s emotional journey in the story. If you’ve experienced trauma, grief, or anything this chapter touches on, please take care while reading. And if you ever choose to reach out for support, I hope you find a voice that listens and a space that feels safe.
Thank you for being here.

The office was warm. Quiet.

A golden kind of light softened the edges of everything — the desk, the old radiator beneath the window, the worn, long haired rug that muffled every footstep. Tissues sat neatly by the armrest, a few crumpled ones already lying nearby the box, half drank glass of water sat on the little coffee table by the couch. A bookshelf sagged politely under the weight of well-loved paperbacks, their spines faded, some cracked. And in the far corner of the room, a houseplant tilted toward the light, all slow stretch and determined green.

Lily sat curled on the couch, legs tucked beneath her like a child trying to disappear into herself. The blanket the therapist always offered lay at her side, untouched. Lily didn’t reach for it. She didn’t want comfort. Not yet anyway. Her fingers clutched one of the garden print pillows, those soft, floral ones that reminded her of someone’s grandmother.

She’d already cried once, quietly, without warning, just trying to describe the dream and failing miserably on her first attempt. Her soul still feeling too frayed around the edges. Now she sat in the hush that followed it, eyes rimmed red and puffy, heart somewhere far away, probably forgotten in time and space in between her dreams.

“I know it wasn’t real,” she said at last, her voice rough from disuse. “It was him, but not.” She paused. Swallowed. Her lips trembled as she searched for something firmer than memory.

“And still, I can’t get him out of my head,” she whispered. “That boy. That version. He was so lost.”

The therapist didn’t speak. She just nodded, slow and deliberate. Listening without expectation.

Lily shifted slightly, uncomfortable. Her skin felt somehow too tight and thin.

“I know that part of his life happened. I’ve read about it. He’s told me… pieces. The jagged parts. The parts he’s made peace with. But it was different, seeing it. Being in it.” She ran a hand over her face. Her voice cracked.

“And I know it was a dream, but it wasn’t just a dream. I held him. I felt him fall asleep in my arms. I felt his whole body let go.” A breath. A blink. Another tear, uninvited, slid down her cheek.

“And then I left,” she whispered. “I couldn’t stay.”

“You woke up,” the therapist said gently. Her voice was smooth but not impersonal like she did not want to invade the fragile peace in which Lily was finally able to open up with her presence. “Not because you abandoned him. Because you had to come back to yourself.”

Lily stared down at her hands. They felt strange now. Still. Like they remembered holding him. She could almost see the glitter and ash on her own skin.

“He asked me not to go,” she said. “He was terrified.”

Silence passed, soft and spacious.

“Do you think he was truly alone, back then?” the therapist asked.

“Yes,” Lily said immediately. Then after a beat: “Maybe not, I don’t know. He said he wouldn’t let anyone near him, that he was terrified of even his own reflection. But does it matter in the end? He felt lonely. Even if he had someone, it would not help him.”

She rubbed at her wrist, the place where she’d felt his pulse, weak, dream thin.

The therapist studied her with kindness. “You love him.”

Lily’s breath hitched.

“More than I know how to say,” she said. “And it’s not just the man. It’s him too. That version. The one who was barely holding on.”

“And you’re grieving the part of him that didn’t get saved soon enough.”

Lily blinked hard. Her mouth opened but no sound came, eyebrows furrowing.

Then, quietly: “Yes. Exactly that.”

The therapist nodded once. No judgment. Just recognition.

“Can I offer you something?” she asked after a moment. “Not an answer. Just… a frame.”

Lily nodded. Her fingers tightened slightly on the pillow.

“You’re mourning a version of someone you love,” the therapist said. “Not just for what he went through, but for what you couldn’t do. Even if it was impossible. Even if you know you couldn’t have changed it.”

She paused.

“The ache doesn’t care about logic. It just wants to be witnessed.”

That did something to Lily. It was like her lungs softened. Like her chest could finally rise and fall without breaking apart.

“You’re not crazy for feeling tethered to that dream,” the therapist continued. “In fact, I think your mind might be trying to help you close a chapter that was never yours to fix but subconsciously you know it needs a closure. And somehow that chapter, with all its trauma and grief, in your mind became yours to carry.”

Lily let out a shuddering breath. She didn’t sob. She didn’t speak. She just breathed. Slow. Careful. As if the room were made of glass and she couldn’t afford to shift too fast.

“I don’t want to carry it,” she said eventually. “But I don’t want to let him go either.”

The therapist smiled softly, kindly. “Maybe the goal isn’t to let him go. Maybe it’s just… to let him rest.”

Lily closed her eyes.

And the tears came again.

Not wild this time. Not like the days before. These were slower. Fuller. A kind of surrender. Not to pain, but to love. She didn’t sob. She just… leaked. Quiet and unresisting.

“Could I write to him?” she asked, voice thin but certain. “The boy?”

“Yes,” the therapist said without hesitation. “Write. Draw. Speak aloud if you need to. Whatever lets you reach him, without needing to rescue him.”

Lily nodded, a motion more felt than seen. Her fingers itched for charcoal. Her heartbeat like it had somewhere to go. And somewhere deep in the marrow of her guilt, something began to shift. Not an answer. But the beginning of release.
________________________________________

For the Boy in the Chair

I don’t know your address, so I’ll send this through the folds of time and dream.

You didn’t know me. I think maybe you still don’t. But I knew you the moment I saw you, knew your hands, your voice, the soft way you asked if I was real. I wish I could’ve said yes in a way that would have meant something.

You were so thin. And so tired. I don’t think anyone’s ever held you the way you need to be held.

I did what I could. I stayed as long as I was allowed. I tried to be soft for you. Gentle. I wanted you to see that someone could look at you and not want anything, except for you to keep breathing.

You asked me if you ever got better.

You do. I’ve met him. He smiles, often. He rests, sometimes. He’s still afraid, but he doesn’t let fear decide for him anymore. You gave him that. You carried the storm so he could find calm.

But I didn’t get to tell you that in time. I woke up, and you were still there, in that flickering room, cigarette burning down to your bones, music skipping like a broken memory.

I’m sorry I left. I know now I had to. But God, it still hurts.

I think of you when the sky’s too quiet. When David looks at me like I’m his safe place and I wonder if anyone ever looked at you that way. If you even though you deserved it.

You did. You do.

You’re not cursed. You never were. You were brilliant, and terrified, and trying to survive something too big for your body to hold. You were a boy in a collapsing star.

You mattered. Even then. Especially then.

Wherever you are now, whatever corner of memory or dream, I hope you heard me. I hope you believed me. And I hope you’re finally sleeping.

 

With love,
Lily
________________________________________
The office was still. The afternoon light had begun to dim, softening the colors of the room. The warmth from the radiator beneath the window hummed faintly, a constant presence in the background, like a heartbeat beneath conversation.

Lily sat curled in the corner of the sofa, her legs again tucked beneath her, hands clenched in the hem of her sweater. She looked smaller than usual, folded in on herself, like she was trying to take up less space in the world. The letter sat between them on the low wooden table, folded neatly, still sealed.

It seemed smaller than it had the night she wrote it, when it felt like it contained her very essence, the deepest parts of her soul. Now it seemed almost comically fragile, piece of paper, scribbled with few sentences in her messy cursive.

Her therapist didn’t reach for it. She waited. Patient, open. There was no pressure in her posture, only quiet readiness.

“Would you like to read it?” she asked gently.

Lily shook her head, quickly. Her throat was already closing up. The idea of reading those words out loud made her chest tighten, made her ribs feel like they might snap under the weight.

A pause.

“I can read it for you, if you’d like.”

Lily hesitated, then nodded.

The therapist picked it up with both hands, as though it were something living. She didn’t unfold it right away. She held it for a breath, then gently smoothed the page flat against her knee. No preamble. No comment. Just began to read.

“I don’t know your address, so I’ll send this through the folds of time and dream…”

Lily stared down at her hands as the words unfolded, her eyes unfocused, her body holding its own kind of stillness. She felt like she was listening from underwater, every word reaching her like a ripple, slow and heavy. Her jaw trembled before her shoulders did. By the halfway point, she was shaking. Her eyes blurred. Her hands gripped the edge of the cushion beneath her. The words were hers, but hearing them spoken aloud, in someone else’s voice, made them real in a way she hadn’t prepared for. More real than the dream. More real than the sketches. She didn’t try to stop the tears this time, there was no point.

The therapist’s voice never faltered, gentle, sure, respectful of every space between the lines. When she reached the final words, she folded the letter again with slow care and rested it in her lap. And then she said nothing. She let the silence arrive. Let it settle between them like something sacred.

When Lily finally spoke, her voice was thin, like it had been worn down to its truth.

“It still feels like I left him there.”

The therapist nodded slowly, her hands still resting in her lap.

“But you also sat beside him,” she said. “You held him. You reminded him he wasn’t alone. That’s what remains.”

Lily blinked down at her hands. “I don’t know how to let him go.”

“You don’t have to,” the therapist said gently. “Not entirely. You only have to remember that he’s a part of the story. Not the ending.”

Lily’s chin wobbled. Her breath hitched.

“He was so broken,” she whispered.

The therapist set the letter on the table gently, her gaze softening.

“And yet,” she said, “even in that version of him… you found love.”

Lily looked up at that. Slowly. Her eyes were shining.

“I think I loved him first.”

That landed between them like truth. And they let it stay there, untouched.

The rest of the session passed mostly in silence. Not the uncomfortable kind. But the kind that follows something sacred. When it was time to go, the therapist didn’t offer any final words or summary. She simply handed the letter back to Lily.

She didn’t open it again. She just held it to her chest. Like a keepsake. Like a memory stitched into paper and ink and breath. Not to relive the dream, but to remember the boy in it had been seen. And maybe, finally, believed.