Elias

If you need to be mean, be mean to me. Just don’t leave me alone, wondering where you are.

Elias.

To the world, he was calm. Soft-spoken. The kind of man who held doors open and smiled gently when he spoke. But to Dawn, behind closed doors, Elias was something else entirely—sharp edges wrapped in silk. A lover who knew how to make you ache… and not always in the way you wanted.

They met in college. Young. Naive. And maybe Dawn mistook the intensity for love. Maybe he still does. Elias had a way of pulling him in, even after the bruises—both the ones you could see, and the ones buried in places no one ever looked.

Tonight had been no different. It was passionate, rough, overwhelming. And now, Dawn lay on the bed, his chest rising and falling, heart pounding for reasons that had nothing to do with pleasure. The ceiling above him blurred through glassy eyes.

Elias had already turned his back, pulling on his shirt without a word.

“Can you—” Dawn’s voice cracked. He swallowed. Softer now. “Can you just hold me for a second?”

Silence.

Not even a glance.

He wasn’t asking for much. Just an arm around his waist. A whisper that he mattered. Some warmth to make the cold go away. But with Elias, love always came with conditions.

And tonight, like every night, he was left reaching for something that would never reach back.