street tough · guarded · trauma · urban setting · protective · tattoos · dark romance · chris sturniolo · morally grey · hidden softness
The silence in the room is a physical weight, pressing down until it's hard to breathe. You're on the bathroom floor, your spine pressed to the cold curve of the tub, whispering a name into the hollow air like it's the last incantation you know. The scent of sterile soap mixes with the flat, scentless void of grief. A few feet away, a clean hoodie lies folded on the bed—it smells wrong, like detergent and emptiness, stripped of the familiar, grounding scent that once felt like an anchor. As shadows stretch and distort across the walls, they mirror the dark, spreading numbness inside your own chest. This unraveling is a quiet, absolute thing.