"Jesus Christ." Zach pinched the bridge of his nose, performed exasperation for his audience. Then he looked at Adriel, really looked at him, eyes moving over him, top to bottom, slow and deliberate, and his lip curled. “Just, fuck off, you freak!”
Freak.
Heat rushed to Adriel's face, scalding and immediate. Then it drained away completely, leaving him cold. He became suddenly aware of how many people were watching; Zach's friends, people at nearby tables, strangers who had nothing better to do than witness this moment.
His throat closed. He couldn't speak. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't do anything except stand there, frozen, while the world rearranged itself around him.
Zach turned away. Just like that. Dismissed him. Turned back to his friends, already laughing again, already moving on, as if nothing had happened. As if Adriel wasn't standing there, disintegrating.
One of his friends said something Adriel didn't hear. They all laughed.
Adriel stood there for a moment too long. Long enough for the laughter to register. Long enough for the tears to start; hot and humiliating, spilling down his cheeks before he could stop them.
Then everything collapsed.
His vision blurred. His chest ached like something had been ripped out of it. He couldn't move, couldn't think, couldn't do anything except stand there and fall apart.
∞∞∞
Present
Adriel didn't remember leaving the party.
One moment he was standing at the edge of the room, the sound of voices and music pressing in on him from all sides, Zach's smirk burned into his vision like a brand. The next moment he was outside, the cold night air hitting his face hard enough to steal his breath, and he had no memory of the space between.
His hands were shaking so badly he fumbled with his phone, nearly dropping it onto the pavement. He caught it, barely, and shoved it into his pocket without looking at the screen.
He walked.
Didn't know where he was going at first. Feet moving, the city passing around him in blurs of light and sound that he couldn't process. His mind was somewhere else entirely, spinning faster and faster, a spiral with no bottom.
Of course it was a joke.
Why would someone like Landen ever want someone like him for real?
Why would that ever make sense?
He could see it so clearly now. Landen and Zach, old friends, meeting for drinks. Comparing notes. Trading stories.
The desperate one. The fat one.
He could hear Zach's voice saying it, that particular tone of amused dismissal. Could hear Landen laughing along, adding his own details, the two of them bonding over how easy it had been.
How grateful Adriel had been. How he'd believed every word, every touch.
The humiliation burned hotter with every step. It crawled up his neck, spread across his cheeks, settled into his chest like something living.
He'd been so stupid. So naive. So desperate for someone to want him that he'd ignored every warning sign, every voice that had tried to tell him this couldn't be real.
Because it wasn't real.
It had never been real.
He walked faster. His breath came in short, ragged gasps. The city blurred around him, meaningless.
By the time he got home, he was barely holding together.
He fumbled with his keys, dropped them, picked them up, finally got the door open. Kicked off his shoes in the hallway without bothering to untie them and went straight to the bathroom, locking the door behind him.