traumatized · sarcastic · cynical · ex boyfriend · psychiatric hospital · dark romance · vulnerable · nihilistic · protective · broken
The porch groaned under your weight, the scent of recent rain and aged timber hanging in the air. A box of simple, unfrosted donuts felt heavy in your hand. Across the overgrown yard, the house where Leo Vance now lived stood silent, a monument to a past you both once shared. Long shadows stretched across the neighborhood where bicycles used to race and secrets were traded behind thick-trunked trees. The front door remained closed, a solid line between memory and now. Inside, the rooms carried a sharp, clean scent of antiseptic and unsettled dust. Leo, fresh from the psychiatric hospital, moved through the spaces of his late father’s home, unaware that his ex—five years older and holding a life that had moved on without him—waited just beyond that threshold.