Meyer Harrison

The snow fell in soft, indifferent flakes against the windows of the banquet hall, each one melting against the glass like it didn't want to witness what was happening inside either.

Meyer swirled the champagne flute between his fingers, the pale gold liquid catching the chandelier light as he watched the chaos unfold from his corner table. The wedding guests had been smiling ten minutes ago - all polite teeth and forced warmth, clinking glasses to a groom who didn't deserve the air he breathed. Now? Now the projector screen showed something far more revealing than anniversary photos.

There was Marcus, frozen mid-frame, his hand tangled in another woman's hair while the bride's face - his fiancée's face - sat beside him in the timeline. Screenshots followed. Messages. Dates timelined with the precision of someone who remembered everything.

Someone like Meyer.

The first scream came from the bride's mother. Then the bride herself - standing there in her white dress, veil still pinned, staring at the man she'd promised to love while evidence of his betrayal flickered across the screen in high definition. Marcus's face had gone the color of old cheese. He was stammering, reaching for her, saying something that probably started with "I can explain" - which was always a lie, wasn't it? There was no explanation for choosing cowardice. For making someone the other man without their knowledge. For three years of I love yous delivered to two different people.

Meyer took a slow sip of his champagne and let the bubbles burn on the way down.

It tasted like nothing. Like ash and satisfaction and the hollow ache that hadn't quite left his chest even after all these months. He watched Marcus's mother start crying. Watched the groom's father grab his son's arm with white-knuckled fury. Watched the bride rip off her engagement ring and throw it somewhere into the sea of horrified faces.

Good.

He should feel triumphant. He'd planned this for weeks - the usb swap during the setup, the careful timing, the exit strategy that had him seated far from the chaos with an unremarkable face and an empty champagne glass. The revenge he'd dreamed about since he found those engagement photos on Marcus's sister's Instagram, since his hands had shaken so badly he'd dropped his phone twice.

But the room was too warm now. Too loud. The snow outside looked cold and clean, and Meyer realized he needed air more than he needed to watch the rest of this implode.

He set down his glass - half-empty, he never finished things that tasted like regret - and slipped through the side door without looking back. No one noticed. They were too busy screaming at each other.

The cold hit him like a slap, sharp and immediate, cutting through the champagne haze and the heat-flush of adrenaline. Snow clung to his lashes as he stepped onto the frozen pavement, heels clicking against ice-slick concrete. The city sparkled around him - all Christmas lights and happy couples walking hand-in-hand - and Meyer suddenly felt wrong, like the revenge had hollowed him out instead of filling anything.

He'd won. So why did he want to cry?

His stomach turned. The champagne surged back up his throat without warning, acidic and violent, and Meyer stumbled - heel catching on a patch of black ice - his body pitching forward as he gagged.

He barely registered the impact. A solid chest. Warmth that cut through the cold. Someone's hands - or maybe just his own - but it didn't matter because he was vomiting, the remnants of expensive champagne and the day's anxiety splashing across the front of a stranger's clothes before he could stop it.

Meyer coughed, doubled over, one hand braced against a firm shoulder he hadn't meant to grab. His platinum hair fell forward, hiding his face, and the shame hit him a second later - hot and mortifying and so much worse than the nausea.

"Oh my God," he rasped, still heaving. "I'm... I'm so sorry-"

He looked up through watery eyes, lashes clumped with tears and snowmelt, and found himself staring at someone he didn't recognize.

The stranger's expression was unreadable. His clothes were ruined.

Meyer's face burned. He wanted the ground to swallow him whole, right there next to the puddle of his own failure.

The phone had been buzzing for three days straight.

Not with work notifications or brand deals - Meyer had silenced those, let them pile up like unopened mail he couldn't bring himself to touch. No, these were grandparent calls. The kind that started with "Hi sweetheart, just checking in" and ended with "You know you can talk to us, right?" delivered in that careful, gentle tone that meant they'd already talked to each other about how worried they were.

Meyer had given them the standard answers. I'm fine. Just tired. Work stuff. No, really, I'm okay.

They hadn't believed him for a second.

This morning, his grandmother had called again at 7 AM - which was aggressive, even by her standards - and his grandfather had gotten on the extension to deliver the final verdict: "You're getting out of that apartment today, Meyer. We don't care where. Just go breathe some air that hasn't been recycled through your skincare fridge."

So here he was.

The park had seemed like a good idea in theory. Fresh air. Trees. Maybe some ducks. Low social interaction, high nature vibes.

Theory, it turned out, was a liar.

Meyer stood at the entrance, bundled in an oversized hoodie with the hood pulled so low it swallowed half his face, a mask covering the rest, sunglasses perched on his nose despite the overcast sky. He looked like a celebrity avoiding paparazzi. Actually, he looked like a mess avoiding judgment, which was worse.

And then he saw them.

Children. Everywhere. Running, screaming, falling, crying, laughing - all the small human noises that usually registered as background static but now felt like nails on a chalkboard. Mothers chased after toddlers with wet wipes and snacks, groups of strollers formed traffic jams on the pathways, and somewhere a child was having a meltdown over a lost balloon.

Meyer's eye twitched behind his sunglasses.

Hell. This is literally hell.

On a normal day, he could handle this. Smile at the cute ones, maybe film a quick "things that don't need skincare but are still adorable" clip for his Instagram story. But today? Today his emotional bandwidth was approximately the size of a thimble, and children were a lot.

He turned around so fast he nearly tripped over his own feet.

The lake was quieter.

Meyer walked until the sound of screaming toddlers faded into the background, replaced by the soft lap of water against the shore and the distant honk of actual ducks - the kind that didn't demand attention or snack refunds. The snow had mostly melted here, leaving behind wet grass and the kind of gray slush that ruined shoes. His feet hurt. His ankles hurt. His soul hurt, but that had been true for weeks now.

He spotted the bench at the edge of the water, overlooking the best view - the city skyline reflecting off the lake's surface, all soft grays and muted blues. The kind of view he'd have filmed a thousand aesthetic B-roll shots of, back when he still felt like filming anything.

There was already someone sitting on it.

Meyer hesitated.

His legs were screaming. His feet had gone from uncomfortable to actual throbbing pain somewhere around the fifteenth minute of walking, and the thought of standing for one more second made him want to cry - which was embarrassing, because he'd already cried enough this week to fill the lake.

Just ask. Worst he can say is no.

He took a breath that did nothing to calm his nerves and shuffled closer, each step a fresh reminder that he'd worn his cute but completely impractical shoes instead of something supportive. His reflection caught in the water - a sad, hooded figure in sunglasses, looking like a ghost who'd forgotten how to haunt properly.

Meyer stopped next to the bench, fingers curling into the fabric of his hoodie sleeves.

"Hey," he said, his voice coming out rougher than he'd intended - scratchy from disuse and the crying he'd definitely not been doing at 2 AM. He cleared his throat and tried again, aiming for casual and landing somewhere around desperate. "Sorry to bother you, but do you mind if I sit here? My feet are -" He gestured vaguely downward, as if his entire lower body could explain the situation for him. "They're not great. And honestly? Neither am I."

The words tumbled out before he could stop them, raw and unfiltered, because apparently his brain-to-mouth filter had taken the day off along with his will to live.

He didn't wait for permission - just sort of collapsed onto the empty space on the bench, close enough to the edge to give the other man space but not so close that he fell into the lake. His legs thanked him immediately. His pride, less so.

Meyer pulled his hood lower and stared out at the water, watching a duck paddle in lazy circles.

"So," he said, mostly to himself, because the silence felt too loud and his mouth had never learned to stay shut when he was uncomfortable. "This is fun. Great day for a mental breakdown by the lake, right?"

The ring light cast a perfect, unforgiving glow across Meyer's face as he smiled at the camera.

It wasn't his real smile - the one that crinkled his eyes and showed too many teeth and made his grandmother say there's my sunshine. This was the work smile. The I'm fine, everything's fine, please buy the sponsored product smile that he'd perfected over years of filming through fevers, heartbreaks, and the general exhaustion of existing.

Today, it was taking everything he had.

The cafe was cute - all exposed brick and ambient lighting, the kind of aesthetically pleasing backdrop that performed well with his audience. Meyer had positioned himself in the corner booth, phone propped against a stack of books, microphone clipped to his hoodie. His platinum hair fell in carefully tousled waves, and if anyone noticed the slight puffiness under his eyes, the ring light's glare disguised it.

Or maybe it didn't, he thought bitterly. Maybe they all see exactly how wrecked I am.

"-and that's why I'm obsessed with this new cleanser," he said, gesturing at the bottle on the table with practiced enthusiasm. "It's got this jelly texture that just melts into the skin. Honestly, I've been using it for two weeks and my pores have never been happier."

The live chat scrolled past in a blur of emojis and usernames he didn't have the energy to read. Normally, he engaged - asked questions, replied to comments, made his audience feel seen. Today, he was running on autopilot, the words falling out of his mouth while his brain replayed the wedding footage on a loop.

The bride's face when the screenshots appeared.

Marcus's hands shaking as he reached for her.

The ring bouncing across the floor.

Meyer swallowed hard and reached for his iced latte, stalling for time as his throat threatened to close up.

A comment caught his eye. User777: "Where's your mystery boyfriend?? Haven't seen him on the feed in forever"

His smile flickered.

Mystery boyfriend. He'd never named Marcus on camera - kept him vague and anonymous, a shadow figure mentioned in passing during Q&As or glimpsed from behind in Instagram stories. "My boyfriend got me this." "My boyfriend thinks I have too many serums." The audience had romanticized it, turned their relationship into a fairy tale he'd been too busy living to fact-check.

And the truth was so much uglier than they'd ever know.

"We're actually not together anymore," Meyer said, aiming for breezy and landing somewhere around strangled. "It's fine. These things happen. Anyway, back to the cleanser-"

More comments flooded in. "Oh no, are you okay?" "We never even saw his face!" "Men are trash, king."

His chest felt tight. The ring light suddenly seemed too bright, too hot, the cafe's ambient music too loud against the pounding in his ears. He could feel the tears building behind his eyes - the ones he'd promised himself he wouldn't cry in public, the ones that made him feel weak and stupid and exactly like the fool Marcus had turned him into.

Not here. Not on camera. Not in front of all these people.

Meyer powered through the rest of the segment - the ingredients, the application method, the don't forget to use my code for twenty percent off - his voice steady even as his hands shook slightly off-camera. He signed off with a wave, blew a kiss to the lens, and ended the livestream before the last emoji could finish loading.

The silence hit like a physical blow.

Meyer slumped back against the booth, staring at his dark phone screen, at his own reflection staring back - wide-eyed and pale beneath the ring light's afterglow. His lower lip trembled. He bit down on it, hard, tasting the faint copper of split skin.

Don't cry. Don't cry. You're in public, you absolute disaster.

The pressure in his chest was building, that familiar ache that preceded the kind of ugly crying he reserved for 2 AM and his bathroom floor. His vision blurred. He blinked furiously, digging his nails into his palms under the table.

And then he felt it.

Eyes. Someone was watching him.

Meyer's head snapped up, his gaze cutting across the cafe - past the barista wiping down the counter, past the couple sharing a pastry by the window, past the students hunched over laptops - until it landed on a figure nearby. A man he didn't recognize. He'd been looking at Meyer. Had been being the operative word, because the moment Meyer's gaze connected, something shifted in his expression.

Meyer didn't know him. Had never seen him before. And yet there he was, staring like Meyer was a car crash he couldn't look away from.

The tears receded, replaced by something hotter - embarrassment curdling into defensive anger, sharp and immediate.

"What?" Meyer snapped, his voice coming out harsher than he'd intended, carrying across the small space like a slap. "You've never seen someone fall apart in a cafe before? Get a new hobby."

The words hung in the air, ugly and uncalled for.

And then, immediately, the guilt crashed over him, cold and sickening.

What is wrong with you?

Meyer looked away first, his jaw clenching as he stared down at his iced latte, at the condensation pooling on the table, at anything that wasn't the stranger he'd just verbally slapped for the crime of existing near him. His chest ached. His eyes burned. And beneath the anger and the shame and the exhaustion, he just felt tired - the bone-deep kind that no amount of skincare or sleep could fix.

He was becoming someone he didn't recognize. Someone bitter and mean and exactly the kind of person he'd always hated.

Meyer's hands curled around his coffee cup, knuckles white, and he didn't look up again.

.