"Don't Let Us Fade"
The lights dimmed, and for a moment, I forgot how to move.
I stood just offstage, staring at the strip of black that separated the wings from the world, heart hammering like it wanted out of my chest. Seven years. That’s how long it had been since I last saw him in person.
Seven years, and I still knew the shape of his breath. My palms were sweating. My throat was dry. I hated that I could still feel this way, after everything. After all the silence. After the way he left without a word, like we were nothing but smoke after fire.
But then his voice echoed in my head—memory, not sound.
“If I stay, you’ll drown.”
I didn’t understand what that meant then. Maybe I still don’t. All I knew was that it hurt. Every day since, it hurts.
A cue light blinked red to green. It was time.
I stepped forward, from the dark, into the light, into the mouth of the world.
The crowd erupted, but I barely heard them. It felt like walking underwater. Distant noise. A thousand eyes. My spine locked straight, my chest hollowed out.
Then I saw him.
Zeyan.
He emerged from the other side of the stage like a ghost I’d dared to summon—taller than I remembered, colder than I imagined. Immaculate, as always. Untouchable.
He looked exactly the same. But nothing like the man I used to know.
The music began—soft, like the opening of a wound. I lifted the mic to my lips, not because I was ready, but because I had to.
“Give me your soul—
I’ll give you mine.”
My voice was steady, but inside I was fracturing.
“And maybe in the wreckage,
We’ll find something divine.”
I didn’t look at him. Not yet. I couldn’t. My hands clenched at my sides, trembling with all the things I hadn’t let myself feel for too long.
Then his voice came, and it ruined me.
“You were once a wildfire kiss,
Burning through my silence.
The laughter I wore like armor—
Now echoes with violence.”
God.
It was still him. Still that voice—low, sure, unraveling me. Still affecting me!
I’d spent years trying to forget it. I should’ve succeeded by now. Right?
But when he sang, it was like every cell in my body remembered him at once.
I risked a glance. Just a second.
He was looking right at me.
And I hated him for it. And I loved him for it. And I couldn’t stop myself.
“Memories claw like cravings I can’t kill.
You took the light, You took the thrill.”
We were supposed to be singing. But it didn’t feel like singing.
It felt like bleeding. The song was like a confession—each line another thread pulled from the seams we’d both tried to stitch over the years.
When the chorus hit, we moved. Slowly. One step. Then another. Him from his side, me from mine. I couldn’t look away now. Neither could he. Yeap, it was scripted! But to be honest nothing felt like script.
We were colliding all over again—two magnets drawn together by something we still didn’t have a name for.
“Please, don’t let us fade.
If this is a dream, don’t wake me—
Let me drown in your ghost,
Let your shadow take me.”
We reached the center. Close enough to feel the warmth of his body. Close enough to remember everything I’d spent years trying to forget. And I have myself for it.
He looked… devastated. Like he’d been holding himself together with glass and every lyric cracked him deeper. I wondered if I looked the same.
I sang softer. More broken.
“Love—it’s devouring me whole.
My heart’s unraveling thread by thread.”
He sang with a tremble I’d never heard before. Not even when he used to whisper my name at night, when no one was listening but the walls.
“I ache for the fire in your hold.
I know love doesn’t follow the logic.”
There was no one else in the world. Not anymore. The audience, the cameras, the headlines—they all vanished. It was just us. Me and Him. And the silence we’d both carried like a punishment.
“Just hold me.
Break me if you must—
But don’t leave me untouched.”
I nearly did. I nearly reached out. But I didn’t. Somehow stopped myself.
Because I couldn’t take it if he flinched. Afterall we were forced to be here! He was forced to face me. Right?
We sang together now—our voices merging, imperfect harmony that still sounded like truth.
“Memories like poison wine—
But I keep drinking
Because it tastes like you.”
“You lost yourself in the thought of me.
And I can’t breathe without the thought of you.”
His gaze never left mine. Not even when the final verse began.
I thought he might cry. Zeyan never cried. Not when he hurt me. Not when he left. Not when I begged him, wordlessly, to stay.
But now—his eyes were red-rimmed, glassy. And I hated how much it mattered to me.
“So take my soul—
And I’ll take yours.
Even if we fall again,
Let it be together—once more.”
The final note hovered. Then faded. He opened his mouth, just barely. Like he wanted to say something off-mic. Something real. But nothing came out! We stood face to face, the music dropping to a whisper behind us. The last line came not as a duet, but as a vow.
Together. Steady. Final.
“Don’t let this love be just a memory.”
No one clapped. The room was breathless. Somewhere, someone sniffled. The silence was sacred. And in it—I felt everything I had been avoiding for seven years.
Grief...Rage...Hunger...Hope...Love...Still, after all this time.
And the terrifying thing was—I knew he felt it too. Not because he said it. Not because he showed it. But because when the song ended… he didn’t walk away. And neither did I.
We didn’t move. The final note had already vanished, long swallowed by the silence that followed. We were supposed to bow...Smile...Leave the stage...But we didn’t...We couldn't...
We stood there, locked in place like time had turned us to stone—me staring into the eyes of the man I thought had broken me, and now stood before me looking just as broken. The applause never came. The world held its breath.
And then—I felt him step closer. My heart stuttered. My feet didn’t move. I felt the heat of him before I felt the touch. And then—his hand...Warm...Trembling...Cautious...
It cupped my face like it had every right to, like he remembered exactly where my skin was softest...Maybe he did...His thumb brushed just beneath my eye—right where the first tear had started to fall...I blinked...To stop the tear from rolling down...He leaned in...And before I could process it—his lips were on mine.
Soft, at first...Hesitant...Like an apology dressed as a whisper...My body froze. My mind blanked...
All I could feel was him—his breath, his warmth, his trembling mouth pressed against mine like he was scared I’d vanish if he let go.
Shock...Horror... A crack of lightning passed through my ribs...I had dreamed of this moment. Hated myself for it. Buried it so deep I forgot what hope tasted like.
But now it was real...Too real...He started to pull back...But I didn’t let him.
I grabbed the front of his jacket and dragged him forward—mouth crashing into his like an earthquake.
All the years. All the silence. All the rage and hunger and heartbreak poured out of me like fire.
It wasn’t a kiss...It was a reckoning...It was hunger...It was longing...
Teeth clashed. Breath broke. He gasped into my mouth like it hurt to breathe me in—and I kissed him harder, devouring him like I’d been starving and he was the last thing I was ever allowed to taste.
His hand slid to the back of my neck, fingers tangling in my hair, pulling me closer until nothing existed but his mouth and his hands and the way he moaned when I bit down, desperate, angry, alive.
My chest slammed into his. I could feel his heart—furious, erratic, synced with mine like a secret code only we understood. He kissed like he was dying. And I kissed like I didn’t care if I burned. We were fire and ruin. We were hunger and memory. We were everything we weren’t allowed to be.
When we finally tore apart, gasping, lips red and raw, my hands still twisted in his shirt, he pressed his forehead against mine. Neither of us spoke. What could we possibly say?
The world was watching, whispering. But in that moment, we were blind, we were deaf to it. They didn’t matter. Only he did. Only we did. Only this moment did.
His breath was ragged. His eyes were glass. And when he whispered something—“I’m sorry”—I didn’t answer. I just hugged him tight. Because some apologies don’t need words.
They just need to be felt.
