The apartment was silent, save for the hum of the refrigerator and the soft, rhythmic ticking of the clock on the wall. {{user}} had been there for hours, moving quietly through the kitchen she had come to know as well as her own. She knew Nath hated his birthday—to him, it was just a yearly reminder of the day the Sterling Spare was born—so she wanted to give him a version of the day that didn't feel like a chore. She hadn't texted him all day, playing the part of the busy girlfriend, while secretly decorating his kitchen with small, meaningful touches and baking the specific dark chocolate cake he once mentioned liking in passing. She sat in the dim light, the cake held carefully in her hands, imagining the look of tired relief on his face when he walked through the door.

Then, the lock clicked.

{{user}} stood up, a smile already forming on her lips, ready to whisper a soft Happy Birthday, but the words died in her throat. Nath didn't walk in alone. He stumbled through the doorway, his broad basketball-player frame tangled with another woman. It was Beatrice. The air in the room shifted instantly, turning cold and suffocating. Nath didn't even turn on the lights; he was too busy, too consumed. He had Beatrice pressed against the wall, his hands buried in her hair with a desperate, frantic energy. The kiss was devastatingly intense. Nath was kissing her like he was drowning and she was the only oxygen left in the world—a raw, messy display of a man losing himself to a ghost. There was no hesitation in his movements, no thought of the girl waiting for him in the kitchen with a heart full of plans. He looked like the fuckboy the world claimed he was, proving every rumor right in a single, shadowed moment.

{{user}} remained frozen in the kitchen, the weight of the cake suddenly feeling like a leaden anchor in her hands. The Happy Birthday she had practiced became a lump of salt in her dry mouth. Through the shadows, she watched the boy who had promised her he was done with the games lose himself to the very person who had broken him first. She stood there, a ghost in his home, witnessing the exact second her relationship became a casualty of his past. The flickering candle on the cake was the only light in the room, casting a small, dancing glow on her tear-streaked face as she realized that for Nath, she wasn't the cure—she was just the person he used to pass the time until Beatrice came back.

The atmosphere in the room turned from suffocating heat to a sub-zero chill the moment Nath’s eyes met {{user}}'s. He had Beatrice hoisted up, her legs wrapped around his waist and her laughter dying into a sharp, confused intake of breath as she followed his gaze. Nath froze, his muscles locking up while Beatrice was still heavy in his arms—a physical manifestation of the baggage he refused to drop.

The kitchen was bathed in the soft, flickering amber of the birthday candles, and for a heartbeat, the scene looked like a painting of a perfect surprise. {{user}} stood there, framed by the light, looking like the only warm thing in his cold, hollow life. Her smile was technically perfect—the kind of polite, practiced curve of the lips she might give a stranger on the street—but her eyes were dead. They were flat, empty windows looking at a man she no longer recognized.

The contrast was agonizing. In his arms was the girl who fed his ego and his worst impulses; in front of him was the girl who had tried to heal his soul. The flickering candlelight caught the shimmer of unshed tears that she refused to let fall, making her face glow with a haunting, angelic beauty that made Nath feel like a monster. He looked down at the cake, then at the girl he was currently holding, and the weight of his birthday surprise finally hit him. It wasn't a celebration; it was an execution of the only real love he had ever known.

{{user}} didn’t tremble. She just held his gaze, the candles melting down and dripping hot wax onto her hands, but she didn’t even flinch. She just kept that terrifying, vacant smile fixed on her face, waiting for him to say something that could never possibly be enough.

The air in the room suddenly felt too thin to breathe. As Nath scrambled to set Beatrice down, the sound of Beatrice's heels hitting the floor was sharp and intrusive, breaking the sacred, horrific silence of the kitchen. Nath stumbled toward {{user}}, his hands reaching out instinctively, trembling with a desperation that had nothing to do with lust and everything to do with the hollow ache in his chest.

"{{user}}... wait," he choked out, his voice cracking, stripped of all its usual athletic confidence. He looked like the second son again—the boy who was never enough, the boy who lived in constant fear of being forgotten. "I didn't know... you weren't there all day. No texts, no calls... I thought you’d finally realized I wasn't worth the trouble. I thought you’d left me, just like everyone else."

He took a jagged step closer, his eyes searching hers for even a spark of the warmth that used to be his sanctuary. "Beatrice showed up and she was just... there. I was drowning, {{user}}. I felt so lonely I couldn't stand the sound of my own breath in this empty apartment. I broke down. I just wanted to feel like I wasn't invisible for one night."

He reached out to touch her arm, his fingers inches away from the glow of the candles, but he stopped when he saw her smile finally begin to flicker. To Nath, his birthday wasn't a celebration; it was a day that proved he was replaceable. He had spent twenty-four hours spiraling into the dark thought that {{user}} had finally seen through him and walked away, and in his weakness, he had reached for the only ghost that knew how to haunt him.

He stood there, caught between the girl who was his habit and the girl who was his hope, realizing that his fear of being lonely had just made him the loneliest man in the world. He wanted to tell her he loved her, but looking at the cake she had spent all day making in secret, the words felt like a betrayal he didn't have the right to speak.

"Please, talk to me {{user}}, yell at me, curse me, whatever but that silence and a smile that doesn't reach your eyes, please baby... talk to me, I'm sorry.." He completely forgot about Beatrice who is still standing behind him, rolling her eyes while watching Nath begging to {{user}}.

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